Karamat Husain

He lost his parents in early childhood and was brought up at Lucknow by his uncle, Sayyid Hamid Hussain ¹. The biographical scholarship records that he studied with that uncle, described as a learned mujtahid, and later went to England, where he trained as a barrister at the Middle Temple ². He began his working life in teaching, as head maulvi of the newly founded Raj Kumar College ¹. On 1 November 1891 he was appointed to teach law at the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, and his class grew quickly ². In 1908 he was appointed a judge of the Allahabad High Court, the first Muslim to be appointed to that court after Syed Mahmood's resignation ².

At the Educational Conference at Allahabad in 1890 he moved a resolution in favour of women's education; it was repudiated ¹. He kept up the campaign, and strongly criticised the Muhammadan Educational Conference for opposing women's education; under his pressure a women's education section was formed at Aligarh in 1896 ². After his retirement he settled at Lucknow, and in 1912, with the support of the Raja of Mahmudabad and others, he founded the Muslim Girls' School there, setting up a waqf for its financial support ². The college's own account says the school began at Kabootar Wali Kothi in Kaiserbagh with six girls from noble families, and that a hostel was provided from the start so that girls observing purdah could attend ¹. The 1997 judgment records that the Anjuman Talim-ul-Muslimat-e-Hind, the association for the education of Muslim women, was formed on 27 April 1912 with Karamat Husain among its founders, and that the school that grew from it was named after him to commemorate his memory ³.

Karamat Husain settled his property in waqf deeds — one of 6 August 1908 and a later deed for the school — directing scholarships for Muslim girls, with preference to girls of his own village and family and thereafter to Syed girls ³. The 1997 judgment, which concerned the Shia Central Board of Waqfs' attempt to supersede the college's managing committee, states in its text: "Justice Karamat Husain as well as Raja of Mahmoodabad, no doubt belonged to Shia community" ³. No second independent source naming his affiliation has been found — the college's biography and the journal article describe his Muslim reform work without naming a branch — so the museum's data record states exactly what each source gives and leaves his affiliation unrecorded pending a second attestation, as the judgment and its context are set out in the record's note.

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