The Company Bahadar

Yeh lahoo surkhee hai azaadi kay afsanay kee

Hum Mustafavi haiN

Recorded in 1974: Music Sohail Rana: Voice Mehdi Zaheer

story behind the event:

The Second Islamic conference was scheduled. Time was short. JamilUDDIn wrote the song and as you will notice that it is in ``rajaz`` meter. It was decided that either Umm-Kulsoom or subhaan [ the great singers from egypt] would be retained. Sohail Rana suggested that we should use our own talent. Mehdi Zaheer, of Radio pakistaN- A legend in his own lifetime both as a scholar and as an artist. His recorded songs in Arabic were already popular in the Middle East but he was himself pretty shy and evasive of publicity & commercialism.

The galloping and advancing of horses, after the introductrey [rajaz] which was a part of battle protocol and strict rule among arabs, is a masterpiece in music composition by a genius as well as singing by another genius.

Enjoy!

Pakistan ko Salgirah Mubarak ho.
PakistaaniON ko salgiraaH mubarak ho.
CHOWK ko salgirah mubarak ho.

In the meantime: propagate, publicise and promote so that we do not end up as ``red`` indians.

---

Islam ( and Muslims ) in ``new`` world.
Before 1800

1) The Navigator of Columbus, who during the famous voyage, brought along a copy of a travel narrative written by Portuguese Muslims who had sailed to the New World in the 12th century. The narrative by al-Idrisi was called ``The Sea of Tears``. In this narrative he discusses he voyage of 80 muhagharrun (explorers) who lived in Lisbon during the reign of the Murabit amir, Yusuf ibn Tashufin. In the narrative it mentions visits to fourteen islands. Over half of these islands were later traced to be in either the Canary Islands or the Azores. However, the ones not traced could have been as far away or the Azores. However, the ones not traced could have been as far away as the Caribbean. An early travel from 942 A.D. is mentioned in the Annuals of al-Mas`udi. (Aramco World, May-June 1992)

2) Istafan, the Arab, was a guide for the Spanish that wished to settle the area that would later be called Arizona in 1539. Istafan was from Azamor, Morocco and had previously been to the New World in the ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez to Florida in 1527. Brent Kennedy mentions him in his article in Islamic Horizons as being one of the first Moors and Muslims in America. Istafan was one of four to survive a five thousand mile tour of the American Southwest. Originally he was part of a three hundred member exploratory group. He would go on to become the first visitor from Europe or Africa among the Pueblo Indians. (Islamic Horizons November/December 1994, pp.24-27). He was also a guide for the Franciscan friar, Marcos de Niza and was in this capacity until he was killed in an Indian attack in Arizona and New Mexico in 1539.

3) Another early Muslim in this period was Nasruddin. He is famous for having killed a Mohawk princess who refused to marry him and for being the earliest permanent Arab settlers in the New World. [History of Green County, N.Y., pp. 19-22.]

4) Ayub Sulaiman ibn Diallo became a go between for his people and the British after his repatriation. I mention him because he continued to practice Islam during his two years of slavery in the 1730`s in Maryland. He was versed enough in Arabic to write at least a half dozen letters in that language, translate coin inscriptions for the British Museum, and draw a map of West Africa writing place names in Arabic.

5) Salim the Algerian, who was a Muslim from a royal family of Algiers that studied in Constantinople. After returning from a visit to Constantinople, he was captured by a Spanish Man of War and later sold into slavery to the French in New Orleans. Eventually he became free after running from slavery, lived among American Indian tribes, and settled in Virginia. Salem was found in rags, almost naked, and was taught English. Eventually, it was ascertained that he knew Greek and he was given a Greek New Testament. Several future members of the U.S. Congress befriended him and he converted to Christianity. A new convert to Christianity he decided to go back home to spread the Gospel. After a disastrous journey to his homeland (where he was shunned as an apostate), he returned to America, met Thomas Jefferson, attended the 1st Continental Congress, and died an insane man having given-up his family and religion for America. While he was at the Congress his picture was painted by a Mr. Peale after the intervention of a member of the Congress Mr. Page. Near the end of Salem`s life, he regained his long lost sanity. He had been insane since his trip to his homeland after his conversion to Christianity. Some say he renounced Christianity, other say died a Christian at the Page estate, and still others say he died in an insane asylum. [Graham`s Magazine, 1857, pp. 433-437.] It should be noted that none of these men tried to spread Islam and only Ayub tried to preserve his own belief.

The Wahhab brothers were shipwrecked on the coast of North Carolina in the 1770`s. They settled married and started a farm. Their ancestors today own one of the largest private hotel chains in North Carolina. The only contemporary reference I have on them is a letter from the North Carolina historian Thomas Parramore. Whether they or their ancestors stayed in the Islamic faith is something that I can not answer at this time. Around this same time a ship of 70 odd Moorish slaves landed in Maryland. No more is known on these Moors.

An important point is that these Muslims were not unique in being able to read and write Arabic. In fact, in many slave quarters in the Caribbean and Brazil there were clandestine Arabic and Islamic schools. One can find references to these in the works by Nina Rodriguez and in the two volume book TWELVE MONTHS IN JAMAICA by Robert Madden (Phil.: Carey, Lea and Blanchard, 1835).

Ref Maharana #47

Persons who understood from my post that I was for the continuation of the British rule in India should be the last ones to tell others about reading comprehension.

I understand scientists have finally discovered a subatomic particle in the vacuum that exists between your ears. In your honor, it has been named the bozon.

[Now go and pray at the Khushbu temple for more sense.]

Sheesh, what happened to the temple you guys in the North erected to Warren Hastings?

Thanks, echoboom! That was a hearwarming tribute.

For Dost-mittar:

``NazaaN thhaa jiss pey kaaba, voh kaafir chalaa gayaa``

Jagan nath azad (marhoom)

#152 by fuzair

thanks for the info on the mongols, they were some fascinating hordes. The pepper stuff was purely my masala. In latter days, Marattas also used smaller ponies against mughal armies effectively in part due to their high mobility and low maintenance.

mongols also apparently had highly effective battle-time communication lines to co-ordinate large scale manuvours that you mention. i have also heard of ruthless ways of implimenting battle-time compliance of orders, where the dominant discourse would not hesitate to kill its dissenters promptly, and this ensured a quick unified manouver.

deadrajput:
I do not know if Bahadur Shah was 7-foot tall, had a brahmin wife or sported a tilak. But his reign (if it can be called that since the effective reign was Maratha`s) was truly one of hindu-muslim solidarity in Delhi and of good-will towards each other. During his time, he started a festival called ``phool walon ki sair``, in which a joint hindu-muslim procession started from a muslim peer`s dargah in Mehrauli (near qutab minaar, Delhi) and marched to the Jog Mata mandir a short distance away, with the processionists making their offerings at both places.
The festival did not survive the vagaries of time. During the sixties, an attempt was made by the government to revive ``phool waalon ki sair``; a procession started from the Tees Hazaari Courts of Delhi with shehnai, drums and fanfare and went to various sites. I was one of the few onlookers of this event. But it fizzled out after a couple of years. Even official patronage could not save a dead horse.

deadrajput, likewise. :)

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deadrajput, you almost make it sound like the Mughal empire was some kind of joint Mughal-Rajput venture. Nothing could be further from the truth. Like all the so-called Islamic empires of South Asia, the Mughal empire was a show run by Turks for Turks. The Mughal royal family spoke Chughtai Turkish at least until the mid 18 th C, well past the empire`s glory days. And Turksh was important not only as the language of the Imperial household, but also as the language the Emperor needed to communicate with his millitary elite.

Contrary to what you claim, there was no intermixing between the Persian and Turkish elites with Rajputs or any other Indian group, Muslim or Hindu. You seem to be under the impression that the elites that came with Babur remained the elite for the whole duration of the empire. In fact, like all the Turko-Mongol Empires of South Asia, the Mughal Empire continually sought, recieved and absorbed fresh new blood from Central Asia and the Middle East into its elite. So that even right at the very end of the empire`s lifetime when it was a mere shadow of its former self, Ghalib was the son of an Uzbek immigrant, Mir Taqi Mir an Arab, Sauda an Afghan.

Every Muslim empire had a Turani and an Irani faction. The Hindustani element, including the Rajputs, was always on the periphery of government. Their `Hindustani` blood marking them as inferior in the eyes of the dominant Turani and Irani factions. Native subcontinentals, including Muslims, were heavily discriminated against at the Royal courts. This is the huge flaw and contradiction in Pakistan`s national ideology which glorifies and revels in `Islamic` rule over South Asia.

deadrajput, you keep stressing wives and mothers. But in almost the whole ancient world, and particularily in the East, female line descent meant absolutely nothing. Male line descent was all that mattered. So that even the last of the Great Mughals, Aurangzeb, who was ethnicaly mostly Persian, was the known as the `Grand Turk` and his family as the `House of Taimur`, Taimur being a male ancestor that predated him by more than 300 years.

During Akbars reign it was his mother, Hamido Bano, who was the master of the Imperial household, not his Hindu wife, who was one wife out of many, and who must have lived a miserable existence among the arrogant and racist Turani and Irani women of the Imperial Harem. Unlike in the movie Mughal-e-Aza, in real life even her son, Jahangir barely acknowledged her.

The Mughals taking of Rajasthani wives was a hostile not a friendly act. It was a way of breaking them and publicly marking their submission before the Chughtai Turks. It might have been a friendly act if the Mughals gave as well as took women from the Rajasthanis, but there is no record of a single instance of this. Even for the liberal Akbar it would have been simply unthinkable to give a Mughal woman as a wife to a Rajasthani or any other Indian.

Well, I can only say `Right article at the Right place`!!!

152#fuzair
further to your query about german emigration to america, austrian are also ethnically german, isn`t it remarkable that siege of vienna in 1683 and first german emigration in1683,
took place and it specifically mentions religious freedom.
the following article is from germanheritage.com



The first German immigrants in America came seeking land and the promise of religious freedom. They had heard that both could be found in the newly chartered colony of Pennsylvania, which was governed by a Quaker, William Penn.

Francis Daniel Pastorius, an agent for a land purchasing company in the city of Frankfurt am Main, organized the original party of settlers. It was a group largely made up of German Quakers and Mennonites from the Rhineland.

Pastorius preceded the settlers to America, arriving in Philadelphia in mid-August, 1683. He negotiated with Penn for a tract of land northwest of Philadelphia on which to build a settlement, which was to become known as ``Germantown.`` Six weeks later, on October 6, 1683, the ship Concord sailed into Philadelphia`s harbor from Germany. On board were thirteen families.

The German settlers felt an immediate kinship to their new home, since Pennsylvania`s rolling hills and fertile plains resembled the terrain of the land they had left behind. Their glowing accounts of life in the New World soon prompted other German immigrants to follow their lead. Settlers representing a variety of Protestant religious groups began descending on Germantown. By 1689, the settlement had grown so large that it had to be incorporated.

The spirit of the Germantown settlement was summed up by the words inscribed over the door of Pastorius` cottage. They promised ``no words of welcome to the godless and profane.`` Germantown`s citizens were pious, peaceful, industrious people, who quickly established southeastern Pennsylvania as a leading agricultural region.

Over the centuries, the community has continued to cling to the language and culture of its native land. Descendants of the first German immigrants are called Pennsylvania Dutch - an Anglicization of the word ``deutsche`` meaning ``German.``

The U.S. commemorative stamp on this First Day Cover, which honors the 300th anniversary of the arrival of the first German settlers in America, was designed by Richard Schlecht of Arlington, Virginia. The artist also designed the 1982 Wolf Trap Farm Park and Ponce de Leon commemorative stamps.

deadrajput (or chotabara)

i agree that the amer scion mansingh married jodhabai to the emperor and this was a political gesture. it is however wrong to think that rest of the rajputs thought highly of this. till todate, the amber (amer) palace is a no-no for other rajput royals to marry into. other rajputs (besides the amber house) mostly rejected marrying their princesses outside of rajputs.

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