Mirza Kalich Beg

Mirza Kalich Beg (4 October 1853 – 3 July 1929), also written Mirza Qaleech Baig, was a Sindhi scholar and man of letters of Hyderabad, Sindh, credited with some 457 books in eight languages across 43 disciplines — among the largest bodies of work in Sindhi literature — and with the first Sindhi novel. ^{1 2}

He served thirty years in the judicial service of British India, retiring in 1910 as a deputy collector, and the British government of India conferred on him the title Shams-ul-Ulama, "Sun of the Scholars", for his scholarly and literary services. ²

He was born at Tando Thoro on the bank of the Phuleli Canal in Hyderabad, in what was then British India and is now Sindh, Pakistan. ¹

According to his autobiography, as the English article reports, his father Fredunbeg was a Georgian born in Tbilisi who was enslaved as a boy during the conflicts with the Qajar dynasty and gifted by the Qajar rulers to the Talpur emirs of Sindh at the age of ten; the Urdu article adds that he was sold to Mirza Khusro Beg, who brought him to Sindh, freed and educated him, and married him to his daughter. ^{1 2}

After the Talpur rule fell and the British took Sindh, the family settled in the outskirts of Hyderabad, where Mirza Kalich was born in 1853. ²

His birth date carries a documented puzzle: the Sindhi article quotes his autobiography dating his own birth to 4 Muharram 1270 AH, which converts to 7 October 1853, and also records a variant of 7 October 1850; the English and Urdu articles and Wikidata give 4 October 1853, which this record follows. ^{3 1 4}

The family's Georgian background is the subject of the 2005 book A Georgian Saga: From the Caucasus to the Indus by his descendant Meherafroze Mirza Habib, vice-president of the All Pakistan Women's Association. ¹

He received his early education at a maktab, then attended Government High School, Hyderabad, and Elphinstone College, Bombay. ²

Returning to Sindh, he passed the judicial examination and was posted as a mukhtarkar at Shikarpur; he rose through the service and retired in 1910 as a deputy collector after thirty years under the British Raj. ²

The English article counts 457 books in 43 disciplines "including chemistry, physics, biology, zoology, plant sciences, Sindhi literature and anthropology", in eight languages including Sindhi, Persian, Arabic and English, and says he knew 25 languages. ¹

The Urdu article names the eight languages as Arabic, Balochi, English, Persian, Sindhi, Saraiki, Turkish and Urdu, and the fields as history, Latif studies, poetry, children's literature, criticism and science, among many others. ²

Among his best-known works:

• Zeenat, the first Sindhi novel, and Khurshid, among the earliest Sindhi plays. ²
• The Chach Nama, the old Persian history of the conquest of Sindh, which he was the first to translate from Persian into English. ²
• His studies of Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai — the saint-poet's life, his poetry and the Lughat-i Latifi — which the Urdu article counts a major contribution to Sindhi literature and the beginning of literary criticism in Sindhi; he also rendered many of Shakespeare's plays into Sindhi. ²
• Sao Pan Karo Pano ("Green Leaf or Black Leaf"), his autobiography. ^{1 3}
• Alamat-ul-Quran ("Signs of the Quran"), Maqalat-ul-Hikmat, Dilaram, the Diwan-i Qaleech, Tuhfat-un-Niswan (accounts of 36 famous women of Arabia, Persia, India and Sindh), and many children's books. ^{1 2}

This section reports what the sources record, without a verdict from the museum.

None of the sources used names a school for him, and Wikidata records no religion for him at all. That he wrote on Islamic subjects — Alamat-ul-Quran, and on Shah Abdul Latif — is authorship, not a school attestation, and nothing is inferred from his family's origin either; his record therefore keeps his school unclassified. ^{4 1}

He died on 3 July 1929 at Tando Thoro, Hyderabad — the place of his birth. ^{2 4}

• English Wikipedia article "Mirza Qaleech Baig" (revision 1379403577); Urdu Wikipedia article (revision 10058517); Sindhi Wikipedia article (revision 373133); Wikidata item Q6874881 (found by name search in the Wikidata API and verified by instance-of-human and matching birth and death dates, since it is not linked from the English article's page properties).
• On his birth: 4 October 1853 (followed) against 7 October 1853 by conversion of his own Hijri dating (4 Muharram 1270 AH) and a 7 October 1850 variant, both in the Sindhi article.