As part of a process of ‘writing back’, amongst other things, against the doleful influence of Huntington's Clash of Civilizations thesis and of the negative image of the Muslim world propagated by the publications of Bernard Lewis's later years, the distinguished Indian historian, Mushirul Hasan, has republished two volumes of Indian Muslim encounters with the British in India and in England. The first was Westward Bound: The Travels of Mirza Abu Taleb (Delhi, 2005), which deals with the four-year journey (1799–1803) of a deeply curious and highly intelligent Indian Muslim to Britain and the remarkable and balanced anatomy of the country he produced in consequence. The second is the book under review, which is the autobiography of another Indian Muslim under the original title of Autobiography of Lutfullah, a Mohamedan Gentleman; and His Transactions with his Fellow-Creatures, which covers Lutfullah's life from his birth in the family of a Sufi pir in Malwa in 1802 down to 1847. The text is supported by a helpful contextualising introduction by Mushirul Hasan, generous appendices explaining people, places and events, a glossary and a full index.

Unlike Abu Taleb's Travels, the vast majority of Lutfullah's work deals with his life in India: his mischievous childhood; his early learning of English much of which was self-taught; his family's hazardous life in the turbulent state of early nineteenth-century Central India; his work as a munshi from 1818 to 1835, teaching over one hundred English ‘griffins’ Persian, Hindustani, Arabic and Marathi; the dangers and excitements of his period accompanying Captain W. J. Eastwick, assistant to Colonel H. Pottinger, Resident in Sind; and his journey to England in 1844 as the secretary to the Nawab of Surat, who sought the return of his property which had been sequestered by the East India Company. Mushirul Hasan, in commenting on the text, emphasises the mutual respect between Hindus and Muslims it demonstrates, Lutfullah's scepticism of astrology and various Muslim practices, his good relations with the British, and his measured judgements on British life ranging from its technological advances to the position of women in society. We could add to this: the vignettes of childhood in which the young Lutfullah puts frogs in the sewing boxes of the womenfolk and sets alight his teacher's beard; the powerful picture of what the breakdown of law and order in the first two decades of the nineteenth century meant for ordinary people in Central India; the strong relationship of Lutfullah with his mother, his care for her, and hers for him down to hearing his lessons when banished from school; the description of the life of a jobbing munshi; and the way in which Lutfullah had little difficulty in both being a devout Muslim and engaging easily with the British and the novelties they brought. One thing, however, emerges with particular force from the latter part of the book, and that is Lutfullah's relationship with one of his pupils, Captain W. J. Eastwick, who was later to become Deputy Chairman of the East India Company and a Member of the Council of India. Eastwick, as his references for Lutfullah indicate had the very highest regard for the talent and character of his munshi. Lutfullah had feelings for Eastwick not far short of love. He describes his parting from him in 1841 as he took his friend, stricken with fever, to his steamer at Bombay: “I hired a good, easy carriage for his conveyance to the harbour, and having carefully put him into it, I seated myself by him and held him fast as he was shivering with his cold fit. In this state I conveyed him on board . . . I then bade him adieu with throbbing heart and tearful eyes . . . .” Thus it was appropriate, when Lutfullah came to publish his autobiography in London in 1857, that it should have been edited by Eastwick's brother, for whom he had also been a munshi, the orientalist Edward Backhouse Eastwick. Like Taleb's Travels there is much to be learned from this book from a range of angles; we are grateful to Mushirul Hasan for being the cause of its republication. It is just a pity that the entry in Appendix II, relating to the Royal Asiatic Society, which was founded in 1823, confuses it with the Royal Society, which was founded in 1660 – all a little odd as Mushirul Hasan is himself a Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society.