It is truly said that anything a person does has to have a motive. My thinking about writing a family history also had a motive. That was provided to me by my ever inquisitive grand daughter Sara Mustafa. It happened like this.
One day as usual she started inflicting me with a barrage of questions and one of them was about her great grand parents. She said We know you are our grand father, but who was your grand father, what was he like, what was his profession and where exactly did he live? etc. I gave her a few brief answers but I kept thinking.
Indeed we have had a chequered history which had lots of not only ups and downs but had quite a few near miracles. I made up my mind.
Telling the history about our fore fathers, where we came from and how most of our grand children find themselves in foreign land with completely alien civilization is not practical. The best thing to do was to write it down.
Swipe sideways to see the whole world
Asia, the Gulf, Africa and Europe
North America
where the grandparents lived where the family lives now
The reason for writing our family history in English is because of the fact that most of us seem to be influenced by this language due mainly to one and a half century of British rule over the sub continent! Besides our grand children and the generations to come will no doubt be conversant with English.
It may be seen that this history mostly revolves round myself as indeed it would be so if it had been undertaken by any other person in the family. However I am sure any one from our family reading it would find it interesting as he or she would certainly find a link.
I have addressed it to my grandson Akbar Mustafa because it is easy to write in the form of a letter. It does not mean that only he should read it. This history is for all our grand children who I wish should know their origin and who their fore fathers were, and how they happen to be where they are now. They would also know something about the past economy.
I hope the reader will enjoy this humble effort.