RĀBET, ʿABD-AL-AḤAD

 

RĀBEṬ, ʿABD-AL-AḤAD, 19th-century Indian author of Persian works (d. 1268/1851-52). He was born at Amthi, the eldest son of Mawlawi Moḥammad-Fāʾeq, and was raised and educated in nearby Lucknow. He entered the service of the East India Company in 1240/1825 and rose to the position of sareštadār (reader) in the office of Colonel (later Sir) John Low, the British Resident at Lucknow (1831-42). At the request of the Resident’s second assistant, Lieutenant John Dowdeswell Shakespeare, Rābeṭ wrote his Waqāʾeʿ delpaḏir in 1253/1837-8. This work, a biography of Pādšāh Begom, chief wife of Ḡāzi-al-Din Ḥaydar Šāh-e Zamān (1229-1244/1814-1827), discusses the history of Oudh up to the year 1253/1837-38. The Persian text was translated into Urdu from a manuscript formerly belonging to the maharaja of Balrāmpur, and published at Allahabad in 1938. Rābeṭ also wrote the Šarḥ-e aḥadiya bar waqāʾeʿ-e Moḥammadiya, a commentary on the satirical prose and verse work of Mirzā Nur-al-Din Moḥammad-ʿAli b. Ḥakim Fatḥ-al-Din Širāzi, entitled Ruz-nāma-ye waqāʾeʿ-e moḥāṣara-ye dār-al-jehād-e Ḥaydarābād (but usually called Waqāʾeʿ-e neʿmat-ḵān-e ʿAli), which describes Awrangzeb’s siege of Hyderbabad in 1097/1686.

 

Bibliography:

Sayyed Nur-al-Ḥasan, Negārestān-e soḵan, Bhopal, 1293/1876-77, pp. 28-29.

Charles Rieu, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, London, 1883, III, 961 b.

T. W. Beale, An Oriental Biographical Dictionary, London, 1894, p. 323.

Oriental College Magazine, August 1926, Lahore, p. 55.

C. A. Storey, Persian Literature: A Bio-bibliographical Survey, Leiden, 1927, I, pp. 1328, 1389; II, pp. 591, 708.

ʿAbd-al-Rasul Ḵayyāmpur, Farhang-e soḵanvarān, Tabriz, 1340 Š./1961, p. 218.

Moḥammad-Moẓaffar Ḥosayn Ṣabā, Taḏkera-ye ruz-e rowšan, Tehran, 1343 Š./1964, p. 278.

(Mohammad Baqir)

Originally Published: July 20, 2002

Last Updated: July 20, 2002