Haji Muhammad Mohsin was and remains one of the greatest Muslim philanthropists of Bengal. He was described as a man of many noble deeds. He had no legal heirs and created a trust to fulfil his wish and desire that after his death to keep up and continue usage and charitable expenditures of all the possessions he inherited.
He was born in 1732 in Chinsurah of Hooghly district in West Bengal. His ancestors came from Iran in the seventeenth century and chose the river port of Hooghly as the centre of their trade and commercial enterprises, amassing enormous wealth. His father Haji Hafizullah married the widow of Agha Motahar who was an advisor in the court of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in Delhi. Agha Motahar was granted holdings of lands in Hooghly, Mushidabad, Nadia, 24 Parganas and Jessore for which reason he moved to Bengal and settled in Hooghly. After his death, his daughter Mannu Jan inherited the estate from her mother, who was the first wife of Aga Motahar. She was the half-sister of Haji Mohsin. Before her death, Mannu Jan who had no children, entrusted Haji Mohsin with the management of her estate and later gifted all her wealth and landed properties to her half-brother Haji Mohammad Mohsin.
Hooghly Imambara built with monies bequathed by Haji Mohsin Trus
Although Haji Mohsin was a wealthy man, he lived a simple and pious life. He was home-schooled in the study of the Holy Qur’ah, Hadith and Islamic jurisprudence (Fiqh). He committed all the income for charity and social and educational causes and created a Waqf or trust with his entire wealth, part of which was intended for the education of Muslim students.
The British colonial administration took over the management of the trust in the 1830s due to the mismanagement of the trust by the two nominated trustees. However, there was indignation in the Muslim community when the British administration built an English College Hooghly College) and funded the education of a disproportionate number of Hindu students studying at this college.
Hooghly College, Now Hooghly Mohsin College
Following the unceasing representations made by Nawab Abdul Latif to the British administration in Bengal from 1861, for the proper administration of the princely endowment trust of the late Haji Mahomed Mohsin, the funds of the Mohsin Trust were liberated; a scholarship scheme was created for Muslim students throughout Bengal, and three modern Madrasahs were founded in East Bengal, one at Dacca (Dhaka), one at Chittagong (Chattogram), and the third at Rajshahi, with the involvement of Nawab Abdul Latif. At the same monies were provided to the famous Calcutta Madrassa, now Aliah University in Kolkata. Following the partition of India in 1947, and as part of the settlement, all the contents of Calcutta Madrasah were transferred to Aliah Madrasah in Dhaka, East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.
Haji Muhammad Mohsin
Haji Muhammad Mohsin
