Did Sir Syed plagiarise an earlier work on Delhi’s epigraphs?

IT is commonly believed that Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817-1898) was the first to have recorded the inscriptions on Delhi’s architectural heritage in his book Aasaar-us-Sanaadeed, published in 1263 Hijri/1847 AD. Altaf Husain Hali in Hayaat-i-Javed, Sir Syed’s biography, has written that Sir Syed had to risk his life in order that some inscriptions on architectural landmarks of Delhi are correctly copied down and described in his book.
According to Hali, Imam Bakhsh Sehbai used to accompany Sir Syed on these treacherous outings and would be much concerned for Sir Syed’s safety while Sir Syed was aloft on a makeshift platform or a hanging basket (Hayaat-i-Javed, Agra, 1903, page 45). Well, Sir Syed must have done some hard work and contents of Aasaar-us-Sanaadeed may have been the fruits of his labour, but it seems that he had incorporated large portions of Sair-ul-Manaazil, an earlier work by Sangeen Baig, penned in between 1821 and 1827, without proper reference or acknowledgement.

But even Sangeen Baig was not the pioneer and he, too, had plagiarised an earlier work on inscriptions on Delhi’s historical buildings, as is revealed by a recently published manuscript. The manuscript, buried in the archives of London’s British Library, proves that its author Hafeezuddin Ahmed, and neither Sir Syed Ahmed Khan nor Sangeen Baig, was the first to have recorded the inscriptions on Delhi’s historical sites.
Ather Farouqui dug up the manuscript and Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu Hind (ATUH), Delhi, has just published it. The book is titled Dilli Ki Imaraat Ke Katbon Ka Awwaleen Makhtoota: Nuskha-i-Hafeezuddin Ahmed — or, the Earliest Manuscript on Epitaphs on Delhi’s Monuments: Hafeezuddin Ahmed’s Manuscript. Ather Farouqui has penned two introductions to it, each one in Urdu and English. An emendatory note from Sharif Husain Qasmi precedes the facsimile of the manuscript.
The elegantly produced book is a must for anyone interested in Delhi’s history. The etchings, epitaphs and engraving on Delhi’s shrines, gates and other archaeological sites — carefully copied down by the calligrapher and finely reproduced in the book — are virtual treasure troves of rare information. For instance, the wordings of the tombstone on some graves or epigraphs on other old structures provide us with rare and authentic pieces of information along with exact dates and/or years.
In his intro, Ather Farouqui writes that Hafeezuddin’s manuscript is immensely important as it was the earliest effort to record the epigraphs on Delhi’s historical monuments and without these epigraphs “it is no more possible to write the history of Delhi”. The manuscript, handwritten in Persian in 1817, Farouqui says, is originally a work by Hafeezuddin Ahmed and was handwritten by Sangeen Baig, a ‘kaatib’ or calligrapher whose real name was Asgher Ali Baig.

Sangeen Baig was asked by the author to handwrite it, but he plagiarised these epigraphs and included them in his book Sair-ul-Manaazil. With the publication of an Urdu translation of Sair-ul-Manaazil in 1982 and two subsequent English translations that appeared in 2017 and 2018, it was debated in literary circles that whether or not Sir Syed had included those epigraphs in his book without any reference to Sangeen Baig. With the discovery of Hafeezuddin’s manuscript it is clear that Sangeen Baig, too, had plagiarised Hafeezuddin Ahmed’s work and later on Sir Syed copied many of the inscriptions from Sangeen Baig’s work, adds Farouqui.
Another interesting fact stressed by Ather Farouqui is that the first edition of Aasaar-us-Sanaadeed was in fact ghost-written by Imam Bakhsh Sehbai, as the language and style in the first edition are reflective of the literary tastes of the day: ornamental and flowery. He says it is a fact never denied by any Sir Syed scholar.
Hafeezuddin Ahmed is renowned for his Urdu translation of Iyaar-i-Daanish, or Touchstone of Wisdom, which he renamed as Khirad Afroz (1803). Majlis-i-Taraqqi-i-Adab, Lahore, had published the work in two volumes in 1963. But not much is known about Hafeezuddin Ahmed and he himself has mentioned that he taught Arabic and Persian at Fort William College, Calcutta. According to Tazkira-i-Tabaqaat-i-Shuara-i-Hind, Hafeezuddin was a poet and after his retirement Charles Metcalfe, the then resident of Delhi, hired him as munshi and asked him to prepare a description of etchings on Delhi’s buildings as Metcalfe and his family loved Delhi, adds Ather Farouqui. In his intro, Farouqui has given useful details of other works published on Delhi’s history.
Dr Ather Farouqui is a well-known author and translator and has written vastly, both in Urdu and English, on topics related to the Urdu language, its understanding and its politics in India. An author of several works in Urdu and English, he holds a doctoral degree from Jawaharlal University, Delhi, and has been contributing to prestigious periodicals. These days Farouqui serves ATUH as secretary.
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Published in Dawn, September 2nd, 2024