Urdu Studies, Vol 5 Issue 1, 2025

The Evolution of South Asian Muslim Tazkiras as Memorials of Places and Persons

Marcia Hermansen
DOI:https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.16879790

Abstract. The paper examines the process of “making Muslim space” in South Asia through the composition of biographical compendia celebrating the lives of local poets, saints, and other notables. It illustrates how shifts have occurred over time in the conception of these places, both in themselves and in relationship to others, particularly in the sense of permanence, security, and more recently, nationalist agenda of a space, as well as in its religious and cultural meanings.
Keywords. Tazkira, Muslim hagiography, publishing in Pakistan, Urdu biography

Read / Download Full Paper

Works cited
Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991.
Bender, Barbara, ed. Landscape Politics and Perspectives. Oxford: Berg, 1996.
Bulliet, Richard W. Islam, the View from the Edge. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994.
Burhanpuri, Rashid. Burhanpur ke Sindhi Auliya’ (Tazkirah-i Auliya-i Sindh). Jamshoro: Sindhi Adabi Board, 1987.
Dard, Khwaja Mir. Nalah-i Dard. Bhopal: Matba‘Shahjahani, 1892.
De Certeau, Michel. The Writing of History. New York: Columbia University Press, 1988.
Dervi, Jalaluddin. Ḥakim-i ahl-i sunnat aur taḥrik-i Pakistan. Lahore, Hamad Ahmad Javeed Publishers, 2014.
Digby, Simon. “The Sufi Saint as a Source of Authority in Medieval India.”  Purusartha, vol. 9, Islam et société en Asie du sud, ed. Marc Gaborieau, Paris: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, 1986)
Eaton, Richard Maxwell. The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.
____. Sufis of Bijapur: Social Roles of Sufis in Medieval India. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.
Ernst, Carl W. “An Indo-Persian Guide to Sufi Shrine Pilgrimage.” Manifestations of Sainthood in Islam, Istanbul: Isis, 1993, pp. 43–68.
___. “The Textual Formation of Oral Teachings in Early Chishti Sufism.” Texts in Context: Traditional Hermeneutics in South Asia, ed. Jeffrey R. Timm. Albany: State University of New York, 1992, pp. 271-297.
___. Eternal Garden: Mysticism, History and Politics at a South Asian Sufi Center. Albany: State University of New York, 1992.
Ewing, Katherine P. “The Politics of Sufism: Redefining the Saints of Pakistan.” Journal of Asian Studies 42, 1983, 2: 251-268.
Fa’iq, Kalb-i ‘Ali Khan. “Rampur ka Shi‘ri Skul.” Ma‘arif 76, October 1955, pp. 285-295.
Faruqi, Nisar Ahmad. Naqd-i Malfuzat. Delhi: Maktabah-i Jami‘a, 1989.
Fazl, Abu’l. Ayeen al-Akbari or the Institutes of the Emporer Akbar, trans. Francis Gladwin. London: J. Swan & Co., 1800.
Fleming, Leslie. “Two Pakistani Women Writers View the City: The Short Stories of Bano Qudsiyya and Farkhandah Lodhi.” Journal of South Asian Literature 25, 1990.
Foucault, Michel. “In Other Spaces.” Diacritics, nos. 16, 22-27.
Gilani, Muhammad Awlad ‘Ali. Auliya-i Multan. Lahore: Sang-i Mil, 1963.
Gross, Jo-Ann. “Khoja Ahrar: A Study of the Perceptions of Religious Power and Prestige in the Late Timurid Period.” unpublished Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1982.
Gupta, Narayani. Delhi between Two Empires 1803-1931: Society, Government, and Urban Growth. Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Hamadani, Muhammad Sadiq Dihlavi Kashmiri. Kalimat as-Sadiqin: Tazkirah-i Safiyan-i Madfun dar Dihli ta Sal-i 1023 Hijri, ed. Muhammad Saleem Akhtar. Islamabad: Iran Pakistan Research Center, 1988.
Husain, Muhammad Tayyib. Auliya’-i Kashmir. Lahore: Nazir Sons Publishers, 1986.
Kalim, Muhammad ad-Din. Madinat al-Auliya’. Lahore: Ma‘arif, 1982.
Kausar, In‘am ud-din. Tazkirah-i Sufiya-i Baluchistan. Lahore: Markazi Urdu Board, 1976.
Khalidi, Tarif. “Some Classical Islamic Views of the City.” Studia Arabica and Islamica: Festscrift for Ihsan ‘Abbas, ed. Wadad al-Qadi. Beirut: American University of Beirut, 1981.
Khan, Tajammul Hussain. Urdu Shai‘ri ka Tisra Skul. Karachi: Jauhar Academy, 1976.
Khan, ‘Ali Muhammad. Mir’at-i Ahmadi II. Bombay: Matba ‘Nami Garami, 1888
Khusrau, Amir. Divan-i Kamil, ed. Sa‘id Nafisi. Tehran: Intisharat-i Javidan, 1965.
Lawrence, Bruce. “Biography and the 17th Century Qadiriyya of North India.” Islam and Indian Regions, ed. Anna Libera Dallapiccola and Stephanie Zengel-Ave Lallemant. Stuttgart: Steiner, 1993.
____. Notes from a Distant Flute: Sufi Literature in Pre-Mughal India. Tehran: Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1978.
Lewis, B. and Holt, P. M. Historians of the Middle East. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968.
Metcalf, Barbara Daly. Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband 1860-1900. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.
Multani, Farhat. Auliya-i Multan (Multan: Kutubkhana Hajji Niyaz Ahmad, 1980.
Naushahi, Sayyid ‘Arif. Ba-Yad-i-Sharafat Naushahi. Lahore: Markaz-i Tahqiqat-i Farsi-i Iran va Pakistan, 1984.
Petievich, Carla. “Poetry of the Declining Mughals: The Shahr Ashob.” Journal of South Asian Literature 25, 1990, pp. 99-111.
Pritchett, Frances. Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and Its Critics. Berkeley: University of California, 1994.
Qadiri, Khalid Hasan. “Maulana Hamid Hasan Qadiri and the Art of the Chronogram.” Urdu and Muslim South Asia: Studies in Honour of Ralph Russell, ed. Christopher Shackle. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, 1989. Pp. 151-166.
Quddusi, I‘jaz ud-din. Tazkirah-i Sufiya-i Sindh, 2nd ed. Karachi: Urdu Academy Sindh, 1975.
______. Tazkirah-i Sufiya-i Panjab. Karachi: Salman Academy, 1962.
______. Tazkirah-i Sufiya-i Sarhadd. Lahore: Markazi Urdu Board, 1966.
______. Tazkirah-i Sufiya-i Bangal. Lahore: Markazi Urdu Board, 1965.
Ramanujan, A. K. “Towards an Anthology of City Images.” Urban India: Society, Space and Images, ed. Richard G. Fox, Winston-Salem, NC: Duke University Press, 1970, pp.  224-244.
Rizvi,Syed Jamil Ahmad. Majalis-e Ḥakim Muhhammad Musa Amritsarii: yaadashton̲ ke aʼine men̲. Lahore:Dar-ul Faiz Ganj Bakhsh, 2003.
Sadiq, Muhammad. Kalimat al-Sadiqin. Islamabad: Markaz-i Tahqiqat-i Farsi-i Iran va Pakistan, 1988.
Sarwar, Mufti Ghulam. Hadiqat al-Auliya’, ed. Muhammad Iqbal Mujaddidi. Lahore: Islamic Book Foundation, 1976.
Shackle, Christopher. “Punjabi in Lahore.” Modern Asian Studies 4, 1970, pp. 239-267.
____. “Rival Linguistic Identities in Pakistan Punjab.” Rule, Protest, Identity Aspects of Modern South Asia, ed. Peter Robb and David Taylor, London: Curzon Press, 1978, pp, 213-234.
Shauq, Hafiz ‘Ali Khan. Tazkirah-i Kamilan-i Rampur. Delhi: Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library, 1986.
Sells, Michael. Desert Tracings; Six Classical Arabian Odes. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1989.
Simnani, Ashraf Jahangir. Lata’ifi Ashrafi, comp. Nizam Gharib Yamani, 2 vols. Delhi: Nusrat al-Matabi‘, 1295/1878.
Smith, Jonathan Z. To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1987.
Stetkevych, Jaroslav. The Zephyrs of Nejd: The Poetics of Nostalgia in the Classical Arabian Nasib. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1993.
Suleri, Sara. The Rhetoric of English India. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1992.
Turner, Victor. Image and Pilgrimage in Christian Culture: Anthropological Perspectives. New York: Columbia University Press, 1978.
Vishvanathan, Gauri. Masks of Conquest: Literary Study and British Rule in India. New York: Columbia University Press, 1989.
Yazdani, Raz. “Rampur ka Mahaul.” Nigar, 1955, pp. 67-68.

Prof. Marcia Hermansen, Professor and Former Director, Islamic World Studies in the Theology Department, Loyola University, Chicago, United States of America, became the Lady Fatima Chair in Women and Divinity at Habib University, Karachi in 2025. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Arabic and Islamic Studies. Her graduate training included study of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu though language training in the respective countries. She specializes in Sufism, Islamic thought, Muslims in America, Shah Waliullah, Islam and Muslims in South Asia, and women and gender in Islam. Among her many publications are Muslima Theology: The Voices of Muslim Women Theologians (Peter Lang, 2013); Islam, Religions, and Pluralism in Europe (Springer 2016) and Religious Diversity at School: Educating for New Pluralistic Contexts, (Springer 2021). 
Email: mherman@luc.edu

The Evolution of South Asian Muslim Tazkiras as Memorials of Places and Persons © 2025 by Marcia Hermansen is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0