Siraj ud daulah biography of abraham

Before Indiana Jones and Lawrence of Arabia, came Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron. Born in 1731, Anquetil was the original Orientalist-adventurer: a European scholarly expert of Asian culture who also embodied bold, heroic action in the field. His speciality was the roots of ancient religions in Asia. He was the first European to translate the Avesta, a millennia-old collection of scriptures central to Zoroastrianism, the ancient faith of pre-Islamic Persia. In order to learn to read the 2,000-year-old form of Persian in which the Avesta was written, Anquetil travelled across India for six years, from 1755. For much of that time, he lived in the port of Surat, studying among the Parsis, a community of Zoroastrians who had fled their ancestral home in Persia centuries before. Published in 1771, Anquetil’s translation of the Avesta caused a sensation. Most Europeans still considered the Hebrew scriptures to be the most ancient and reliable religious text. Anquetil’s translation confronted Europeans with Zoroastrian scriptures that were ancient and independent of Biblical traditions. He raised unsettling questions about the history and uniqueness of Christianity, and revolutionised European thinking about religion.

But Anquetil’s most lasting achievement might be his particular brand of self-promotion as the Orientalist-adventurer. In a set of memoirs presented as a companion to his translation of the Avesta, he portrayed himself as a fearless man of action, a hunter of esoteric knowledge facing dangers from man-eating beasts to lustful princes. With time, Anquetil’s fame gradually faded. But the image of the Orientalist-hero that he pioneered not only endured but grew into a celebrated and symbolic archetype of Western culture.

Before Anquetil cut a new figure of the scholar as a man of action, Europeans writing about Asia were mostly merchant-voyagers such as Marco Polo (1254-1324) and François Bernier (1620-1688), or missionaries focused on converti

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Siraj-ud-Daula Mirza Muhammad as Siraj-ud-Daulah or Siraj-ud-Daulah, Siraj commonly ud-Daula, was known the last independent Nawab of Bengal. The end of his reign marked the start of the rule of the East India Company over Bengal and later almost all of the Indian subcontinent. Siraj succeeded grandfather, Alivardi his maternal Khan as the Nawab of Bengal in April 1756 at the age of 23. Betrayed by Mir Jafar, the commander of Nawab's army, Siraj lost the Battle of Plassey on 23 June 1757. The forces of the East India Company under Robert Clive invaded and the administration of Bengal fell into the hands of the company. Page – 1 / 6 Siraj-ud-Daula was the last independent Nawab of Bengal who succeeded Alivadi Khan to the throne. He was born in 1733 and died on July 23, 1757. The end of his reign marks the end of the independent rule in India and beginning of the company’s rule that continued unabated over the next two hundred years. His father, Zain-ud-Din was the ruler of Bihar and his mother Amina Begum was the youngest daughter of Alivardi Khan. Alivardi Khan had no male heir to succeed him after his death. Therefore, he adopted Siraj-ud-Daula and was brought up like an heir to the throne. He was provided all the necessary training essential for a ruler of a state. He was very beloved one of Alivardi Khan. He was nominated as the Crown prince in 1752 and declared that he was to succeed Alivardi as the next Nawab of Bengal. But this declarat ...
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Dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta

The Black Hole of Calcutta was a dungeon in Fort William, Calcutta, measuring 14 by 18 feet (4.3 m × 5.5 m), in which troops of Siraj-ud-Daulah, the Nawab of Bengal, held British prisoners of war on the night of 20 June 1756.John Zephaniah Holwell, one of the British prisoners and an employee of the East India Company said that, after the fall of Fort William, the surviving British soldiers, Indiansepoys, and Indian civilians were imprisoned overnight in conditions so cramped that many people died from suffocation and heat exhaustion, and that 123 of 146 prisoners of war imprisoned there died.

Some modern historians believe that 64 prisoners were sent into the Hole, and that 43 died there. Some historians put the figure even lower, to about 18 dead, while questioning the veracity of Holwell's account itself.

Background

Further information: History of Calcutta

22°34′24″N88°20′53″E / 22.573357°N 88.347979°E / 22.573357; 88.347979

Fort William was established to protect the East India Company's trade in the city of Calcutta, the principal city of the Bengal Presidency. In 1756 India, there existed the possibility of a battle with the military forces of the French East India Company, so the British reinforced the fort. Siraj ud-Daulah ordered the fortification construction to be stopped by the French and British, and the French complied while the British demurred.

In consequence to that British indifference to his authority, Siraj ud-Daulah organised his army and laid siege to Fort William. In an effort to survive the battle, the British commander ordered the surviving soldiers of the garrison to escape, yet left behind 146 soldiers under the civilian command of John Zephaniah Holwell, a senior bureaucrat of the East India Company who had been once a milita

By Louis Ciotola

For nearly 200 years, India was the jewel in the crown of the British Empire. Untold wealth flowed from such cities as Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, supplying Great Britain with much of what made it possible to construct its world empire. It is almost unbelievable that all of that was initiated through the exploits of just one man, Colonel Robert Clive. It was Clive who dreamed about becoming the first governor of a British India. Until his achievements in Bengal, culminating in the victory at Plassey, the British and the East India Company were more concerned with trade than any grandiose political schemes. Plassey changed everything. As much a coup as an actual battle, Clive’s triumph eliminated any hope that India would remain free of foreign rule.

The events that so profoundly altered the course of both India and the British Empire took place in 1756-1757, solely within the confines of the eastern province of Bengal, India’s most prosperous concerning trade with the outside world. It was there that Mirza Muhammad, better known as Siraj-ud-Daula or “Lamp of State,” reigned as Nawab, having succeeded his grandfather, Aliverdi Khan, in early 1756. Technically, the Nawab of Bengal was one of many viceroys or subahdars serving the Mogul emperor, but in reality, with the decline of the empire, men such as Siraj-ud-Daula ruled as independent kings.

At 27 years old, Siraj-ud-Daula had grown to be a cruel man, known for his affinity for torturing both man and beast. This tendency did not affect his ability to govern, for if he was known as a weak ruler, he was also recognized to be quite talented in regard to affairs of state. He was especially wary of the activities of Europeans, who in the last two centuries had descended on his country like, as his predecessor once described, a swarm of bees.

The English hive in Bengal, centered on the city of Calcutta, was prospering immensely from the trading privileges, or firman, grant