Khwaja Salimullah

Nawab Sir Khwaja Salimullah Bahadur (7 June 1871 – 16 January 1915) was the fourth Nawab of Dhaka, son of the third Nawab, Khwaja Ahsanullah, and grandson of Khwaja Abdul Ghani, the builder of Ahsan Manzil. ^{1 2} At Dhaka in December 1906 he hosted, at his own cost, the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference at whose close the All-India Muslim League was founded, and he was made its vice-president and a member of the committee that drafted its constitution. ^{2 1} He was a leading supporter of the 1905 Partition of Bengal, and he led the campaign for a university at Dhaka until it was pledged in 1912 — the English article counts him among the founders of the University of Dhaka and of the Ahsanullah School of Engineering. ¹

His short life — he died at forty-three — was divided between heading his family's estate, politics and education, and he spent on public causes until he was heavily in debt. ²

Salimullah was born at the Ahsan Manzil palace in Dhaka on 7 June 1871, the eldest son of the third Nawab of Dhaka, Sir Khwaja Ahsanullah, by his first wife Nawab Begum Wahidunnesa, and the grandson of Khwaja Abdul Ghani. ^{1 2} Following the family tradition he learnt Arabic, Urdu, Persian and English at home. ^{1 2}

He began in government service as a deputy magistrate in 1893, left it in 1895 to go into business at Mymensingh, and on his father's death in 1901 succeeded, as the eldest surviving son, as head of the Dhaka Nawab estate and to the hereditary title of Nawab. ^{1 2} He had six wives and many children, the eldest of whom, Khwaja Habibullah, succeeded him. ¹

Salimullah entered politics over the Partition of Bengal: he gave his opinion on the government's plan in 1903–04, opposed certain aspects of it at an assemblage of Hindu and Muslim leaders at Ahsan Manzil on 11 January 1904, and then hosted Viceroy Lord Curzon at Ahsan Manzil on 18–19 February 1904, discussions after which some changes were made to the plan. ² When the partition took effect on 16 October 1905 and Dhaka became capital of the new province of Eastern Bengal and Assam, he presided that very day over a meeting of Muslim leaders from all over East Bengal at Northbrook Hall, from which emerged the political front called the Mohammedan Provincial Union, and toured the mofussil towns building public opinion for the new province against the Congress movement against it. ^{1 2}

On 14–15 April 1906 he organised the first convention of the East Bengal and Assam Provincial Educational Conference at Shahbag, Dhaka, and was chosen its president. ^{1 2} He then circulated to Muslim leaders across India a proposal for an all-India political party he called the "Muslim All India Confederacy", and obtained the Aligarh leaders' consent to convene the twentieth session of the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference at Dhaka entirely at his own cost. From 27 to 30 December 1906 over two thousand people, including Muslim leaders from all over India, gathered at the Nawab's family garden-house at Shahbag — Banglapedia puts the cost to Salimullah at over six lakh rupees — while the English and Arabic articles place the convention at Ahsan Manzil itself. On the last day, 30 December 1906, the assembly formed the All-India Muslim League, appointing Salimullah its vice-president and a member of the committee to frame its constitution, which Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar wrote. ^{2 1 3}

Presidencies followed: of the All Bengal Muslim League — Banglapedia dates its founding, with him as president, to 1906, while the English article dates his presidency to 1907 — and of the East Bengal and Assam Provincial Muslim League, whose secretary he became in 1908 and president in 1909. He chaired the twenty-second Muhammadan Educational Conference at Amritsar in December 1908, where he demanded separate elections for Muslims and the right to political discussion in educational institutions. ^{1 2 3} In 1909 he gathered wealthy men of both communities into the Imperial League of Eastern Bengal and Assam to keep Hindu–Muslim relations cordial; in March 1911 he presided at Ahsan Manzil over the decision to keep the provincial Muslim League and the provincial Educational Conference separate, the one for politics, the other for education and welfare; and on 2 March 1912 he chaired the Calcutta meeting that amalgamated the two Bengal Muslim Leagues into the Presidency Muslim League and was made president of it and of the Bengal Presidency Muslim Association. ^{1 2}

In August 1911 Salimullah demanded a university for Dhaka — at a Curzon Hall function which Banglapedia says also heard his demand for a high court — and when George V annulled the partition on 12 December 1911 the shock to him was severe. On 20 December he submitted eight-point demands to Viceroy Lord Hardinge for the protection of Muslim interests, and on 31 January 1912 the establishment of a university at Dhaka and the appointment of an education officer for Muslims were pledged; Banglapedia credits his efforts with the inclusion of an Islamic Studies department in the university's plan. ^{2 1} The English article counts him among the founders of the University of Dhaka and of the Ahsanullah School of Engineering; Banglapedia specifies that in 1902 he paid the Rs 112,000 his father had promised for the establishment of the Dhaka Engineering School. ^{1 2}

He sat on the Women's Education Committee of East Bengal and Assam (1908) and on the government's 1909 education reform committee from which came the 1915 plan for modern madrasa education; he established a night school at Dhaka and gave for mosques, madrasas, hospitals, student dormitories and the revival of Dhaka's handicrafts. ²

In 1912 he collected large donations in East Bengal for the Turkish Muslims endangered by the Balkan Wars and sent the money to assist them; but in 1914, when Turkey sided with Germany in the First World War, he supported the Allied Powers. ^{1 2} He was a member of the East Bengal and Assam Legislative Assembly (1906–1912 per Banglapedia) and of the Bengal Legislative Assembly from 1913 until his death; in April 1914 he held the conventions of the Muslim Education Conference and the Muslim League and thereafter practically retired from active politics, burdened by the debts of his unlimited public spending. ^{2 1}

The honours lists differ between the sources: the English article gives Companion of the Star of India in the New Year Honours of 1906, Knight Commander in 1909 and Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire on 23 December 1911, while Banglapedia lists CSI in 1902, Nawab Bahadur in 1903, KCSI in 1909 and a "GCSI" in 1911. ^{1 2}

He died at his house at Chowringhee, Calcutta, on 16 January 1915, aged forty-three; his body was brought to Dhaka with state honours and buried in the family graveyard at Begum Bazaar. ^{2 1} Pakistan Post honoured him in its "Pioneers of Freedom" series in 1990 and Bangladesh Post in 1993, and his name survives at Dhaka in the Salimullah Muslim Hall of the University of Dhaka, the Sir Salimullah Medical College, the Salimullah Muslim Orphanage and Nawab Salimullah Road at Narayanganj. ¹

This section sets out different positions as reported in the sources. It is not a verdict by the museum.

Banglapedia presents him as a "Muslim nationalist, an architect of the Muslim League, patron of education", and all the sources foreground his support for the Partition of Bengal, his demand for separate electorates and for a due share of public services for Muslims, and his organisation of opinion against the Congress campaign. ^{2 1} Banglapedia equally stresses his deliberate work for Hindu–Muslim cordiality in the new province through the Imperial League of 1909, and his spending on public welfare to the point of heavy debt. ²

His own school is named only by the English article's infobox (Sunni Islam); since neither Banglapedia nor the Arabic and Urdu articles names one, the faith field in his data record remains unknown with that single attestation stated in the note. ^{1 2}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
• Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.