Titumir

Syed Mir Nisar Ali (27 January 1782 – 19 November 1831), better known as Titumir (তিতুমীর), was a Bengali revolutionary, who developed a strand of Muslim nationalism coupled with agrarian and political consciousness. He is famed for having built a large bamboo fort to resist the British, which passed onto Bengali folk legend. Titumir was born as "Syed Mīr Nisār ʿAlī" on 27 January 1782 (14 Magh 1182), in the village of Chandpur — or Haidarpur, per some sources — to Syed Mir Hasan Ali and Abidah Ruqayyah Khatun. The family claimed an Arabic ancestry, tracing their descent from Caliph Ali; Syed Shahadat Ali had migrated to Bengal to preach Islam and his son, Syed Abdullah was appointed as the Chief Qadi of Jafarpur by the Emperor of Delhi. Titumir was educated in a local madrassa where he became a hafiz of the Quran by the age of twenty, beside being accomplished in Bengali, Arabic, and Persian. A good wrestler and gymnast, he served as the bodyguard of a local zamindar for some time. However, Titumir was jailed on account of a conflict and upon release, in 1822, left his job to embark upon Hajj. In Mecca, Titumir was influenced by Syed Ahmad Barelvi, an Indian Islamic revivalist preacher, who advocated for Jihad to purge all non-Islamic corruptions and accretions from sociopolitical life and enforce Sharia. Upon return from Mecca, he began to mobilize the Muslim peasantry by preaching against deviations from the Quran — veneration of pirs, construction of dargahs, charging of interest on loans, etc. were all frowned upon — and declaring the Zamindars — who were mostly, Hindu — to be in cahoots with the Company regime. Titumir's diktats penetrated into the social life, as well: men were to have beards with trimmed moustaches and women adorn burqas; those who did not abide by were to be boycotted. The lowest classes of the Muslim society responded favorably but his emphasis on Islamic fundamentalism ensured negligible support from Hindu peasantry. However, the Zamindar community, irrespective of religion, objected to his activities.