Meer Mosharraf Hossain

Mir Syed Mosharraf Hossain (13 November 1847 – 19 December 1912) was a Bengali writer, novelist, playwright and essayist, considered the first major writer to emerge from the Shia society of Bengal, according to the English article, and one of the finest prose writers in the Bengali language. ¹ His magnum opus Bishad Shindhu (Ocean of Sorrow) is a popular classic among the Bengali readership. ^{1 2}

He was born in the village of Lahiripara (the English article spells it Lahinipara) in Kumarkhali Thana under Kushtia District, and spent most of his life at his ancestral Padamdi Nawab Estate in Baliakandi, then part of Faridpur District. ^{2 1} His widely accepted date of birth is 13 November 1847, though some researchers claim 26 October 1847 and the English article's infobox gives 15 November 1847. ^{1 2} His father was Nawab Syed Mir Moazzem Hossain, a Bengali aristocrat whom the English article describes as a Shia Muslim and the zamindar of the Padamdi Nawab Estate, and his mother Daulatunnesa Begum was a convert from Hinduism from a Bengali Hindu zamindar family. ¹

He learned Arabic and Persian with a teacher at home and then Bengali at a pathsala, began his formal education at Kushtia School, studied up to Class V at Krishnanagar Collegiate School and was admitted to Kalighat School in Kolkata but could not complete his studies. ^{2 1} He began his career looking after his father's landed property, later served the Faridpur Padamdi Nawab Estate and, in 1885, the Delduar Estate, and lived in Kolkata from 1903 to 1909. ²

While still a student he worked as a mofussil reporter for the Sangbad Prabhakar and the Gram Barta Prokashika, where his literary career started, and Kangal Harinath, editor of the Grambarta Prakashika, was his literary guru. ^{2 1} He later edited the Azizannehar (1874) and the Hitakari (1890), was associated with the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad, and assisted Rowshan Ali Chowdhury in publishing the monthly Kohinoor. ^{2 1}

He was a pioneer among nineteenth-century Bengali Muslim writers: his first novel, Ratnavati, was published in 1869, and besides novels he wrote poetry, plays, textbooks and an autobiography. ² Banglapedia's list includes Gauri-Setu (1873), Basantakumari Natak (1873), Zamindar Durpun (1873), Er Upay Ki (1875), Bisad Sindhu (1885–1891), Sangit Lahari (1887), Go-Jiban (1889), Behula Gitabhinay (1889), Udasin Pathiker Maner Katha (1890), Tahmina (1897), Niyati Ki Abanati (1889), Gazi Miyar Bastani (1899), Maulood Sharif (1903), Mussalmander Bangla Shiksa in two parts (1903, 1908), Bibi Khodejar Bibaha (1905), Hazrat Omarer Dharmajiban Labh (1905), Madinar Gaurab (1906), Bajimat (1908), Amar Jibani (1908–1910) and Amar Jibanir Jibani Bibi Kulsum (1910). ²

Bisad Sindhu, which narrates the tragic tale of the battle of Karbala and which the English article describes as depicting the Shia version of the martyrdom of Hasan and Husayn, is considered his masterpiece. ^{2 1} Zamindar Darpan was written against the background of the peasant riots in Sirajganj during 1872–73, on the plight of common people under the zamindars and their struggle against them. ^{2 1} His literary works were included in the school, secondary, higher-secondary and graduation curricula of Bengali literature in Bangladesh. ¹

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

Banglapedia presents him as outspoken and free from communal prejudices, ready to take positions that made him unpopular in his own community: he believed the indiscriminate slaughter of cows would endanger agriculture and wrote an essay against the practice, and in much of his writing he satirised the follies and vices of contemporary society, criticising in Gazi Miyar Bostani the chaos and corruption of nineteenth-century Bengal. ²

On affiliation, the English article is the only fetched source that names one: it calls him a writer from the Shia society of Bengal and one of the first Shia writers of colonial India, and calls his father a Shia Muslim; Banglapedia names no affiliation for him at all. Because that attestation stands in one source family and a father's affiliation is family background, which does not count, the faith field in his data record remains unknown with the attestation stated in full there, and no mapping from "Shia" to shia-twelver is made on a single source. ^{1 2}

In 1865 he married Aziz-un-Nesa, and in 1874 his second wife Bibi Kulsum. ¹ He died on 19 December — the English article gives the year 1911, while Banglapedia and Wikidata give 1912, which is followed here with the variant recorded — and was buried at Padamdi. ^{2 1}

• The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
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