Memoirs of Faizabad (Part II)

Memories of Faizabad is an English translation by William Hoey of the Persian chronicle Tarikh-I-Farah Bakhsh of Munshi Faiz Bakhsh, who came to Faizabad in 1770-71 AD and served in the establishments of Bahu Begam and Darab Ali Khan, an officer of the former, from 1774 to 1818. His book is, therefore, an eye-witness account of the History of Faizabad. Although he asserts that he wrote this work at his own conviction and got an inspiration to write it after an English Collector of Gorakhpur made enquiries from him about the History of Faizabad yet the internal evidence suggests that, like other Persain works on Awadh, it has also been got written by the Britishers with a view to propagate about Faizabad the facts they wanted to make current and most of the facts and details contained in it are a by-product of the same process. He propounds the theory that the persecution of Mukhtar-ud-daulah and Haidar Beg Khan and their families by the earlier Nawabs was basically responsible for their anti-Awadh policies as Naibs during the Nawabi of Asaf-ud-daulah but it is negated by the concrete contemporary evidence available on the subject. It can hardly be agreed that Haidar Beg Khan and not Warren Hastings was the architect of spoliation of the Begams of Awadh. Despite above lacunas, the book is an invaluable source for knowing the socio-cultural and politico-economic aspects of the History of Faizabad from 1722-1818. Editorial notes and an index have been added to make the book more useful for scholars and general readers. The book basically centers around Nawab Begam and Bahu Begam and their eunuchs bahar Ali Khan, Jawahar Ali Khan and Darab Ali Khan but invaluable facts about the Nawabs and nobles of Awadh are also intertwined. It not only traces the architectural manifestations at Faizabad from time to time but also contains invaluable hints and pieces of information about the edifices at Lucknow, both old and new. The remaining portion of this book is in the press.