19th-century Indian author of Persian works (d. 1268/1851-52).
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.