Paper short abstract:

This paper examines genealogy as a genre of history, in particular by looking into how individuals, families, and communities in colonial India situated themselves within the larger social spheres and claimed a distinct status for themselves.

Paper long abstract:

A study of the tradition of compiling, preserving, and handing down of genealogies is one of the most effective ways to understand concepts of individual, family, and community in a society. Among the Muslims of South Asian qasbahs (unique small towns), continuous and meticulous production of shajrahs (genealogies) was a marked feature through which the compilers and those discussed attempted to situate themselves in their social spheres for greater claims to status and respectability. What is interesting is that this practice was popular not only among the Shia and Sunni Muslim gentry but also among Hindus such as those of the Kayastha caste who amassed their own vamshavalis (family trees).

These genealogical compilations were not only about preserving ancestral information, embellishing ornate family trees, and claims to an elevated status, howsoever contestable their veracity, but also about making sure that their hasb-o-nasb (lineage) does not get unsettled which was executed through the practice of endogamy. Genealogies were also a major tool to enumerate the past achievements of a family or community to which an individual was invoked to live up to. Compilations such as the one by Syed Faizan Ali Naqvi that begins with the Prophet and ends with all sharif Muslims living in the lanes and by lanes of Amroha up until 2000 CE is not uncommon. This paper looks into several genealogical trees and related literature to investigate how they were closely tied up to the history of specific individuals, families, and communities.