Novel
Abdullah
আবদুল্লাহ
Kazi Imdadul Huq · 1920
Synopsis
Bengal at the beginning of the twentieth century, at the time of the 1905 partition. Abdullah, a young Muslim who has just taken his degree, becomes a schoolmaster; he runs up against devotion to pirs, the seclusion of women and the contempt in which families of high birth hold ordinary people, even in the house of his father-in-law, the very conservative Syed Abdul Quddus. Opposite him, Mir Sahib, a disreputable moneylender but a reforming mind, pushes for change, and around them live Abdul Qader, Rabiya, Halima, and the Hindu doctor Debnath.
Context
The author gave the first chapters to the magazine Moslem Bharat, in Calcutta, in 1920; the magazine suddenly ceased publication, illness came, and he died in 1926 after writing thirty chapters. Kazi Anwarul Qadir wrote the last eleven from his drafts, the poet Shahadat Hossain revised the whole, and the book appeared from the Muslim Press in Calcutta, with a glossary of the words used by Muslims. Tagore wrote that he had read it with pleasure, because it taught him about life in Muslim households.
Who it is for
A novel in forty-one chapters; the narration is in formal language, the dialogue in spoken, sometimes regional language, and a glossary explains the words specific to the Muslims of Bengal.
Prizes and reception
It is regarded as one of the first modern novels written by a Muslim from Bengal, and as its author's major work.