Jamnagar
History of the Khojas in Jamnagar State
According to Khoja oral history, they had the protection of the Jadeja Rajput rulers of Kutch and moved with them since the Jadejas flight from Sindh in the previous centuries, due to Muslim invasions. This is plausible as the Jadejas were variously Hindu, Muslim, syncretic and later reverted back to Hinduism in the 19th Century Kutch & Kathiawar.
The Jádejás have for long been half Hindus half Musalmáns. At the time of Mahmud Begada's conquest (1472), though appearing pagans in their practice, they were anxious to learn the true doctrines of Islám, to some heretical form of which they had long been converted. In Akbar's time (1590) they were still Musalmáns (A'in-i-Akbari, II. 72), and till the beginning of the present century they were quite as much Musalmán as Hindu. In 1818, they took oaths on the Kurán, considered it an authority in law and morals, followed its rules about eating, married freely with Musalman families, and worshipped in mosques. (MacMurdo. Trans. Bom. Lit. Soc. II. 237). Since then under the influences noted above (p. 63, note 3), they have, to a great extent, gone back to their first faith.(1880)
Following a fatal family feud in between the Jadejas, the Mughal Emperor Jahanghir decided to attack the Jadeja chief, Jam Rawal and so the Jam fled with his entourage out of Kutch, and conquered the town of Dhrol and its dependencies in Kathiawar. Jam Rawal bestowed the rule of Dhrol province to his brother Hardholji and Jam Rawal went on to conquer other parts of Kathiawar and formed his new kingdom.
Once on a hunting trip on the land of present-day Jamnagar, a hare was found to be brave enough to turn on the hunting dogs and putting them to flight. Deeply impressed by this, Jam Rawal thought that if this land can breed such hares, the men born here would be superior than other men, and accordingly made this place his capital. On the 7th day of the bright half of the month of Srawan, VS 1956 (August 1540 AD) on the banks of two rivers Rangmati and Nagmati, he lay the foundation of his new capital and named it Nawanagar (new town). Nawanagar eventually came to be known as Jamnagar meaning the Town of the Jams.
According to popular folklore, the Khojas received grants of free land across the new Jamnagar State from Jam Rawal.[2]
In terms of political and military power and economic potential, Nawanagar (founded by Jam Rawal, a political faction which left Kachh in the middle of the sixteenth century) happened to be the most important of these chieftaincies in the peninsula (Abul Fazl 1978: 256). Also known as Little Kachh (Kachh-i khurd) in Mughal accounts, Nawanagar was another sarkar in the province of Gujarat that remained outside of Mughal imperial control.
Various merchant communities including the Marwari (originally from Marwar in present day Rajasthan, but dispersed over a large part of the trading world of Eurasia), Bhatia, Khoja, and Memon created extensive inland and overseas trading networks.
In the Kathiawar region much cotton was produced as well, mainly in Nawanagar and some parts of Sorath.9 The former was a major center of textile production where the water of the river Rangmati was particularly suitable for bleaching and printing cloth (Ali Mohammad Khan Khatma 1930:
The agronomy of Kachh and Nawanagar (as that of Ahmadabad, Broach, Baroda, and Surat) had apparently been well commercialized at least since the seventeenth century. Cash crops like indigo and cotton occupied a good proportion of the total cultivable land. Peasants and artisans too seem to have worked in conformity with the demand for particular commodities in order to squeeze the maximum advantage from what was probably a sellers’ market (Prakash 1998: 343).
Khoja merchants were involved in the purchase and export of textiles from the Jamnagar area, through the port of Mandvi, to sell to the Dutch East India Company
around 1753.
..the Dutch soon contemplated to ask permission from the Raja of Nawanagar to be allowed to trade at that place.25 They got the desired permission through a parwana (a formal letter/an order) issued by the Raja which gave the Company access to this potential region for trading purposes.
Personal Histories of Famalies connected to Jamnagar in Khojawiki (2024)
• Adam Adu
• Aminbhai Nazerali Lalji Abhwani
• Ghulam Hussain Mohammad Jindani
• Hussein Alibhai Hasham Mullani
Gallery of Jamnagar
Notes and References
- ↑ Gazetteer of the Bombay Presidency: Volume V: Cutch,Palanpur, and Mahi Kantha. Bombay-Printed at Government Central Press,1880. Kindle Location 1780
- ↑ ..someone in Mundra connected me to a Mr Jadeja - a Rajput from Dhrafa. Met and Spoke to him in 2017 - he said that the Rajputs and Khojas Ismailis walked from Jamnagar to Dhrafa, as they could all claim land. There was a thriving Ismaili merchant class there, a Jamatkhana also; and , Mohamedali Jinnah was born in DHRAFA
- ↑ Nadri, Ghulam.Exploring the Gulf of Kachh: Regional Economy and Trade in the Eighteenth Century-Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol. 51, No. 3 (2008), pp. 460-486 (27 pages) Published By: Brill- Kindle Location 87-90
- ↑ Nadri,Ghulam.Exploring the Gulf of Kachh: Regional Economy and Trade in the Eighteenth Century-Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol. 51, No. 3 (2008), pp. 460-486 (27 pages) Published By: Brill- Kindle Location 190-192
- ↑ Nadri,Ghulam.Exploring the Gulf of Kachh: Regional Economy and Trade in the Eighteenth Century-Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol. 51, No. 3 (2008), pp. 460-486 (27 pages) Published By: Brill - Kindle Location 168-170
- ↑ Nadri,Ghulam.Exploring the Gulf of Kachh: Regional Economy and Trade in the Eighteenth Century-Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol. 51, No. 3 (2008), pp. 460-486 (27 pages) Published By: Brill- Kindle Location 171-174
- ↑ Nadri,Ghulam.Exploring the Gulf of Kachh: Regional Economy and Trade in the Eighteenth Century-Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient Vol. 51, No. 3 (2008), pp. 460-486 (27 pages) Published By: Brill- Kindle Location Location 329-331