Muslim Festivals in India and Other Essays

Garcin de Tassy was a nineteenth-century French Indologist whose interest in the culture, literature and customs of the Indian people equalled that of his better-known contemporaries, such as William Jones and Max Mueller. Muslim languages–Arabic, Persian, and Urdu–captured his scholarly interest. "Distrusting western travellers’ accounts, de Tassy, who was Professor of Hindustani at the University of Paris, presented an account of Muslim customs and beliefs which was based on contemporary Muslim accounts. Hence his Memoire sur des particularites de la religion Musulmane dans l’Inde, d’apres les ouvrages Hindoustani, was based largely on quotations from Urdu poets, and from books published in Calcutta under John Gilchrist. "This volume contains the first-ever translation of de Tassy’s celebrated work as well as reviews of two books published in 1832: the classic Observations  on the Musulmauns of India, written by Mrs Meer Hassan Ali, an English lady who had married into an aristocratic Muslim family and lived in Purdah; and Ja’far Sharif’s work on Muslim customs–Qanoon-e Islam. "There is a lively and perceptive introduction which provides the literary and social context of the work, and a useful appendix on the Sufi mystical orders in India.