Syed Mir Mosharraf Hussain, a writer, novelist, playwright and essayist, is considered to be the first major Bengali writer to emerge from the Muslim society of Bengal, and one of the finest prose writers in the Bengali language. His important works include Bishad Sindhu (Ocean of Sorrow) depicted the tale of martyrdom of Hasan and Husayn in Karbala.
Ikhtiyar al-Din Muhammad ibn Bakhtiyar Khalji’s conquest of Bengal in the beginning of the thirteenth century not only brought political Islam directly in contact with that region, it also led to considerable social, economic and intellectual progress in Bengal. The establishment of mosques, madrasahs and Sufi lodges (khanqah) by the Muslim rulers, coupled with the influx of Muslim missionaries and Sufi preachers, encouraged local Hindus, Buddhists and others to embrace Islam, which, in turn, led to the development of a new Muslim culture in Bengal.
And although the early Muslim scholars, writers and poets wrote primarily on religious and spiritual topics, this trend shifted during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, thanks to the efforts of prominent Muslim writers like Nur Qutb-i-Alam, Shah Muhammad Saghir, Amir Zain al-Din, Muhammad Kabir and Sayyid Sultan. These scholars and writers produced a large number of works on historical, cultural, philosophical and mystical topics, and aspects of comparative religion and mythology. The medieval Muslim writers and poets contributed substantially to the development of Bengali literature under the patronage of the Muslim rulers although only a fraction of their writings are extant today.
It was their pioneering contribution to the development of Bengali language and literature which subsequently inspired other indigenous Muslim writers and poets to become some of Bengali literature’s most outstanding and inspirational figures. Perhaps one Muslim scholar and writer of the nineteenth century enriched modern Bengali literature more than any other; his name was Mir Musharraf Hussain.
Mir Musharraf Hussain was born into a notable Muslim family in the village of Lahiripara in Nadia (located in modern Kushtia in Khulna) in present-day Bangladesh……….
Read the biographical entry in THE MUSLIM HERITAGE OF BENGAL: The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of Forty Great Muslim Scholars, Writers and Reformers of Bangladesh and West Bengal by Muhammad Mojlum Khan
Mir Musharraf Hussain
Mir Musharraf Hussain