The Muhammad Avat■ra: Salvation

History, Translation, and the Making of

Bengali Islam Ayesha A Irani
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The Muhammad Avatāra
The Muhammad Avatāra

Salvation History, Translation, and

the Making of Bengali Islam

AY E S H A A . I R A N I

1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data

Names: Irani, Ayesha A., author.
Title: The Muhammad Avatāra : salvation history, translation,
and the making of Bengali Islam / by Ayesha A. Irani.
Description: New York : Oxford University Press, 2021. |
Includes bibliographical references and index. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020016969 (print) | LCCN 2020016970 (ebook) |
ISBN 9780190089221 (hardback) | ISBN 9780190089245 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Islam—Bangladesh. | Bangladesh—Civilization. |
Muhammad, Prophet, -632—Biography—History and criticism.
Classification: LCC BP63.B3 I78 2020 (print) | LCC BP63.B3 (ebook) |
DDC 297.095492—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016969
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020016970

DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190089221.001.0001

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by Integrated Books International, United States of America
 In humble dedication
to the Rohingya of Arakan,
whose stories have been forgotten;
and to those who are working
to alleviate their unspeakable suffering
The past appears to be no longer written in granite but rather
in water; new constructions of it are periodically arising and
changing the course of politics and history.
—​Aleida Assmann
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The magnanimity of many remarkable individuals has made this book

possible. My journey began at the University of Pennsylvania, where I had
arrived to study with the late Aditya Behl. Those years, when he opened up
the riches of medieval Indian literature to me, were simply exhilarating.
Aditya’s own work on the Sufi literature of Awadh claimed him completely,
and, after his untimely demise in 2009, his model remained a beacon for
me as I continued on my scholarly path without him.
My dissertation could not have been written were it not for the dedi-
cated guidance of my committee members. I am indebted to Jamal Elias
for taking me under his wing, even though my research was far along in
its conception. His astute supervision and generous support at this critical
juncture allowed me to bring my doctoral thesis to completion. Daud Ali
was also pivotal to sustaining my momentum after Aditya was gone. Rachel
Fell McDermott has been a gracious and giving guide through long years
of research and writing, both in graduate school and beyond. My scholar-
ship owes much to her meticulous scrutiny of my work and her cherished
friendship. Christian Lee Novetzke has steadfastly counseled me through
my graduate studies and career, and guided me through every stage of the
publication of this book. I am deeply grateful to both Rachel and Christian
for their unflagging support and sage advice over many years.
I would also like to extend my heartfelt thanks to all those who taught
me at Penn and beyond: the late Ludo Rocher, who ushered me into Penn’s
portals, and to Rosane Rocher, Harunaga Isaacson, Barbara Von Schlegell,
x A cknowledgments

Everett Rowson, Haimanti Banerjee, Pardis Minuchehr, Negin Nabavi, the

late Alibha Dakshi, and Debangan Basu. Renata Holod gave me a lasting
passion for the art of the Islamic world. Even today I draw strength from
the memory of my time with her, and I thank her for her generosity. My
thanks also to Rupa Viswanath and Jody Chavez for their friendship and
support of my research at Penn.
At the University of Toronto, I was delighted to find the camaraderie
and intellectual association of Christoph Emmrich, Enrico Raffaelli, Srilata
Raman, Ajay Rao, Karen Ruffle, Walid Saleh, Maria Subtelny, Mohamad
Tavakoli-​Targhi, and Shafique Virani. Christoph, Srilata, and Karen all
provided critical feedback at various stages in the writing of this book.
I would also like to thank Usman Hamid and Adil Mawani, then grad-
uate students at the University of Toronto, ​for their questions about and
thoughtful suggestions for my research. Likewise, I have felt blessed by
the kindness and unwavering support of my colleagues at the University
of Massachusetts Boston. Jean-​Philippe Belleau, Christina Bobel, Elora
Chowdhury, Dolly Daftary, Alexander Des Forges, Sana Haroon, Kenneth
Rothwell, Rajini Srikanth, Lakshmi Srinivas, and Jason Von Ehrenkrook
have all cheered me on through the writing process. Terry Kawashima,
Chair of the Department of Asian Studies, has been steadfast in her sup-
port and encouragement of my work. Sana and Elora have read drafts of
various chapters and provided me with thoughtful suggestions. I have also
benefited from conversations with Thibaut d’Hubert of the University of
Chicago and Manan Ahmed at Columbia University. I am truly grateful for
the insights, encouragement, and friendship of all of my stellar colleagues.
Over the last year or so of writing this monograph, I had the great
pleasure of working on my draft chapters with four impressive scholars of
South Asia, who fed my imagination, while providing encouragement and
critique along the way. I extend my warmest thanks to Elora Chowdhury
(again), Sarah Pinto, Jyoti Puri, and Banu Subramaniam for their recep-
tivity, maturity and judgment, and sisterly conviviality.
It was under the discerning mentorship of Tony K. Stewart that this
monograph achieved its final form. Having carefully read my bloated
original manuscript, Tony provided me with a detailed map through
A cknowledgments xi

and out of the labyrinth of my own making. Were it not for his brilliance
and generosity, this book would never have come to press in a timely
fashion. At various points along the way, moreover, Tony freely shared
his understandings of the Nabīvaṃśa with me, challenging my thinking
and spurring me in new directions. Chapters 3 and 4 of this book owe
much to the discussions I have had with him over the years, particularly
to the workshop “Reconsidering the Non-​Muslim Other: Internal and
External Religious Differentiation” he organized at Vanderbilt University
in 2013, and to the seminar at Brown University where he presented, in
2018, the central ideas of his latest masterpiece, Witness to Marvels: Sufism
and Literary Imagination. I benefited greatly from reading the manuscript
of this book.
An earlier iteration of Chapter 1 of this book was published in History
of Religions. I am grateful for the journal’s permission to adapt the article
for this book, to Wendy Doniger for her editorial support, and to John
Stratton Hawley and Tony Stewart for their valuable feedback on the ar-
ticle. Chapter 6, likewise, is a revised version of an essay first published in
The Prophet’s Ascension: Cross-​Cultural Encounters with the Islamic Miʿrāj
Tales in 2010. My thanks to Indiana University Press for permission to
reuse and update this article for the book. I am grateful to the editors,
Christiane Gruber and Frederick Colby, who encouraged me to submit
my essay for this splendid volume.
I extend my special thanks to Cynthia Read, Salma Ismaiel, Brent
Matheny, Leslie Johnson, Preetham Raj, and Katherine Eirene Ulrich at
Oxford University Press, and the anonymous reviewers of my book man-
uscript, who each, in their own way, helped shepherd this book into pro-
duction. I am grateful to the artist, Anita Chowdry, for permitting me
to use her exquisite piece on the cover of my book. To the University of
Massachusetts Boston, my thanks for providing me with the subvention
necessary to bring this book to publication.
I have had the privilege of presenting my research on Islamic Bangla
literature to diverse audiences and received much invaluable feedback.
My thanks are due to the Department for the Study of Religion, the
Iranian Studies Seminar Series, and the Oriental Club at the University
xii A cknowledgments

of Toronto, and the Department of Asian Studies and the Junior

Faculty Research Seminar at the University of Massachusetts Boston
for opportunities to present my research; to the Dissertation to Book
Workshop sponsored by the American Institute of Indian Studies; to
Projit Mukharji for his invitation to the Liminal Deities Workshop
at McMaster University; to Wendy Doniger for including me in the
panel “Muslim-​Hindu Literary Encounters in Early Modern South
Asia: Conversations with Aditya Behl” at the Annual Meeting of the
American Academy of Religion; to Thibaut d’Hubert and Alexandre
Papas, who invited me to Paris for the conference “A Worldwide
Literature: Jāmī (1414–​1492) in the Dār al-​Islām and Beyond”; to Rebecca
Manring for her invitation to the conference “Bengali Maṅgalakāvya and
Related Literature,” sponsored by the American Institute of Bangladesh
Studies; to Debojyoti Das for inviting me to the workshop “Connected
Landscapes: The Alternative Understanding of Asian Societies, History,
and Ecology,” and to Supriya Gandhi for her invitation to the work-
shop “Translation in Early Modern South Asia,” both at Yale; to Teena
Purohit and SherAli Tareen for their invitation to the conference
“Muslim Thought and Practice in South Asia,” at Boston University;
to Frank Korom for including me in the Greater Bengal Roundtable
Conference, sponsored by the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies
and Boston University; to Yael Rice for inviting me to the symposium
on “Books and Print between Cultures, 1500–​1900” at Amherst College;
to Benjamin Fleming for including me in “Intertwined Worlds: the 10th
Annual Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital
Age,” at the University of Pennsylvania; to Aniket De and Priyanka
Basu for their invitation to the symposium “Rethinking Folk Culture in
South Asia”; to Usman Hamid for including me in his panel “Devotion
to the Prophet Muhammad in Early Modern South Asia” at the Annual
Meeting of the American Academy of Religion; to Rajarshi Ghose for
inviting me to present my research at the Centre for Studies in Social
Sciences Calcutta; and to Mohammad Nabeel Jafri and others for their
invitation to deliver the keynote address at the Fifth Biennial Graduate
Conference on South Asian Religions at the University of Toronto. Each
A cknowledgments xiii

one of these presentations helped me to refine my thinking, and for this

I am most appreciative.
I have benefited from the generosity of the University of Pennsylvania,
the University of Toronto, the University of Massachusetts Boston,
and several funding organizations who supported my graduate and
post-​graduate research. I am particularly grateful for the University of
Pennsylvania’s William Penn scholarship, the Briton Martin fellowship,
and for Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships; the American
Institute of Bangladesh Studies Dissertation Fellowship; the Newcombe
Foundation’s Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship;
and the University of Toronto’s Connaught New Researcher Award. The
support of all of these institutes and funding organizations enabled me to
pursue my research single-​mindedly.
The librarians of the University of Pennsylvania, the University of
Toronto, the Widener Library of Harvard University, and the British
Library have made my research a true delight. The superlative collections
on South Asia and the Middle East of the University of Pennsylvania, and
the extraordinary facilities they provided for my dissertation research
merit special mention. For their indefatigable efforts in tracing and scan-
ning endless numbers of obscure articles and book-​chapters, I especially
wish to thank Sheila Ketchum, Coordinator for Books by Mail, and her
dedicated team of David “Lapis” Cohen, Ionelia Engel, Susan Gavin-​
Leone, and Maryanna Kraft. I am deeply grateful for their expertise and
constant support through my graduate years, without which I could never
have written my dissertation. My thanks are also due to the Interlibrary
Loan staff at the University of Massachusetts Boston, who have worked
closely with me to further my research.
In Bangladesh, I was fortunate to receive the kind favor of many
individuals who opened up their homes and libraries to me. Mohammad
Abdul Kaium and Rajiya Sultana, my first teachers of Islamic Bangla lit-
erature; Nehal and Zahed Karim; Deoan Nurul Anoyar Hosen Caudhuri;
and Muhammed Sadique shared their knowledge with me and gifted
me with rare articles and books from their personal libraries. The late
Saiyad Hasan Imam Hoseni Chishti of Sultanshi, Habiganj, founder of
xiv A cknowledgments

the Mahākavi Saiyad Sultān Sāhitya o Gabeṣaṇa Pariṣad, and his nephew,
Saiyad Murad Ahmad, the younger brother of the custodian (motaoyāllī)
of the Mudarband shrine complex, spent long hours discussing their
family histories, their lives, and Sufi practices with me, and graciously
opened up their family shrines to me. I am beholden to them for receiving
me into their sacred spaces and households.
At Dhaka University, Perween Hasan, Kalpana Halder-​ Bhowmik,
Dulal Kanti Bhowmik, Monsur Musa, Ahmed Kabir, and Shahjahan Miya
shared their insights on Islamic Bengal and its literature with me. Shaheen
Sultana at the Dhaka University Library; Muhammad Abdul Awal Miah
and Mohoshin Ahmed Chowdhury at the Library of the Asiatic Society
of Bangladesh; Indra Kumar Simha of Comilla’s Ramamala Library; and
Muhammad Ishak Caudhuri of the Chittagong University Rare Books
Library made every effort to assist me. The latter also gave me the opportu-
nity to study an exquisite manuscript of the Nabīvaṃśa in his private collec-
tion. Additionally, he accompanied me to the villages in the Patiya district
where he had conducted ethnographic research on Saiyad Sultān. Jamal
Uddin, a journalist and the proprietor of Balaka Prakashana, provided
me with important materials on Chittagong’s history. The late Jahangir
Alam, Manager of the Ambrosia Guest House, Dhaka, and his dedicated
staff made me feel at home in Dhaka. To Nayan Talukdar, Khairulbhai,
Jamalbhai, and Quddusbhai, my heartfelt thanks for all of their generous
assistance in Dhanmondi and on my travels through Bangladesh. In
India, Hena Basu, in Kolkata, and Harisankar Chakraborty, the Deputy
Librarian of Tripura University, Agartala, helped source rare materials for
my research. To them, my gratitude.
I am grateful for the dear friends and accomplished colleagues who
have supported me along the way: Debangan and Srabani Basu, Aradhana
Behl, Amit Dey, Alberta Ferrario, Benjamin Fleming, Sudha Ganapathi,
Rajarshi Ghose, Walter Hakala, Epsita Halder, Brian Hatcher, Prashant
Keshavmurthy, Frank Korom, Minakshi Menon, Christopher Ryan
Perkins, Ronit Ricci, Yael Rice, Sunil Sharma, Harleen Singh, Pushkar
Sohoni, Narendra Subramanian, Eliza Tasbihi, and Fozia and Murtuza
Vasowalla. My father, Aspandiar Ardeshir Irani, was and will ever remain a
A cknowledgments xv

wellspring of inspiration to me in more ways than I can here convey. It was

he who planted the first seeds of love of Persian literature in my heart. His
sudden passing in 2010 meant that he could not see the fruits of the tree he
had so lovingly tended. My beloved mother, Yasmin—​my first teacher—​
and my brother, Khushru, and his wife, Anuradha, have provided me
with the comfort of their wisdom and precious love. For them, I am ever
grateful. Kathleen, my mother-​in-​law, has been a source of inspiration for
me: her exemplary spirit and love of all things new have never failed to
energize me. Shaman and Roshan have enlivened this journey, providing
everything from happy distraction to thoughtful critique, and all the love
and patience they could muster in between. Shaman has indeed played a
pivotal role in the careful editing of my manuscript, of which he has indul-
gently read innumerable drafts. This project would not have been possible
without his abiding support. To Shaman and Roshan, my love and grati-
tude for their companionship on this long and winding road.
 A NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION
AND OTHER CONVENTIONS

This monograph employs three systems of transliteration, all of which are

based upon the Library of Congress (LOC) romanization tables: for Bangla
and Avadhi, the LOC’s romanization system for “Sanskrit and Prakrit” has
been used, while for Persian and Arabic the separate LOC tables provided
for each of these languages have been employed.1
To respect Bangla’s dynamic connection to the two cosmopolitan lan-
guages of premodern Bengal—​Sanskrit and Persian—​certain conventions
have been adopted in transliterating Bangla. First, because of Bangla’s ge-
netic connection with Sanskrit and for purposes of easier identification of
Sanskrit loanwords (tatsama) in Bangla, the Sanskrit romanization system
has been used for the transliteration of Bangla. Orthographic distinction
between va and ba follows the etymology of the Bangla word in question.
Being a noun of Sanskritic origin, avatāra, for example, is romanized with
a va, while nabī and karibā, being an Arabic noun and a Bangla/​Prakrit
verb respectively, are both romanized with a ba. Keeping in mind Bengali
sensibilities, exceptions have been made in the case of Baṅga, which is
romanized as such, rather than as Vaṅga; and with the modern Bengali
proper names Bandyopādhyāya, Banerjee, Basu, and so on, which are
commonly spelt with a “b” rather than a “v.” Second, to honor the Bangla

1. See “ALA-​LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-​

Roman Scripts,”
accessed here: http://​www.loc.gov/​catdir/​cpso/​roman.html
xviii A N ote on T ransliteration and O ther C onventions

vernacular, I preferentially use Bangla forms of Arabo-​Persian words

which occur in Islamic Bangla texts in discussions pertaining to this liter-
ature. Thus, I use “Āllā” rather than “Allāh,” “Korān” rather than “Qurʾān.”
Where confusion may arise, a Bangla term is provided with its Arabic or
Persian equivalent in parentheses in the first occurrence. In discussions
of medieval Islamic literature, Arabic and Persian proper nouns and
terms are provided in their romanized forms true to the transliteration
systems of each of these languages. Some degree of inconsistency is in-
evitable in discussions of Islamic Bangla texts in the context of medieval
Islamic literature and traditions. The following abbreviations have been
used throughout to indicate the relevant language, where confusion may
arise: Ar. for Arabic; Av. for Avadhi; B. for Bangla; and Pers. for Persian.
Third, in the case of Islamic Bangla proper names and terms of Arabo-​
Persian origin, I drop the final inherent (and depending on the pronun-
ciation, occasionally the medial inherent or epenthetic) a. For instance,
the title Rasul Vijaya and the name Saiyad Sultān are transliterated thus,
instead of Rasula Vijaya and Saiyada Sulatāna. However, all such in-
herent vowels are retained in the citation of textual passages. Fourth, it
is also important to bear in mind that orthography in the middle Bangla
period is fluid; one word can be spelt in a number of different ways in
the manuscript tradition, with short and long vowels often being inter-
changeable. For instance, Ālī can also be spelt as Āli; nūra as nura. The
name of the Prophet of Islam can be spelt as “Mohāmmada” but also as
“Muhammada.” The name of the author of the Nabīvaṃśa may be spelt
“Chaiyada Cholatāna,” “Saiyada Sulatāna,” or “Chulatāna.” To avoid con-
fusion, in the latter two cases, I have used “Muhammad” in all discussions
pertaining to Islamic Bangla texts, and “Saiyad Sultān” throughout this
monograph. In translated passages, I have retained the orthography of
the middle Bangla as it is provided in Ahmad Sharif ’s critical edition of
the Nabīvaṃśa. It is noteworthy, however, that such critical editions them-
selves standardize middle Bangla orthography often to the variant that
most closely follows the sound of the Arabo-​Persian word in question,
without systematically recording orthographic variants. So, at best, my
choice of variant reflects the critical edition rather than the many middle
A N ote on T ransliteration and O ther C onventions xix

Bangla variants of a particular Arabo-​Persian word in the vast manuscript

tradition of the Nabīvaṃśa.
Transliteration of Bangla vowels follows the regular pattern, but with
the addition of three symbols drawn from conventions for Prakrit—​ä, ï,
and ü—​to accommodate the orthographic peculiarities of middle Bangla.
Verbs such as hao or haila, spelled with diphthongs in modern Bangla, are
in middle Bangla often spelled with two vowels, which I transliterate as
haä or haïla, respectively. Similarly, the verb form āchaüka, for instance,
is spelled with the medial vowels a and u rather than a diphthong, and is
transliterated as such. In addition, the characters ṛ and ṛh have been used
for retroflex consonants, as in bāṛi (“house”) or gāṛha (“dense”).
All proper names are provided in transliteration, except for those of
the well-​known figures Muhammad Enamul Haq, Sukumar Sen, Ahmad
Sharif, and Rabindranath Tagore. For Bengali authors who also wrote in
English, I have used their own favored spellings of their names, rather than
transliterate these. Place names are provided in their standard modern
forms. The exceptions to this rule are Bangladeshi village names, which
I have chosen to provide in transliteration. Wherever relevant, premodern
forms of place names are also supplied in transliteration.
All titles of articles in Persian and Arabic are standardized to the LOC
system. This is particularly applicable to articles from the Encyclopedia of
Islam (Second Edition).
Concerning dating conventions, the abbreviation A.H. (anno Hegirae)
indicates the Islamic Hijrī calendar, which begins in the year 622 of the
Common Era. B.S. indicates bāṅgālā śaka, the approximate Common Era
date for which is calculated by the addition of 593. Names of individuals
are often followed by the years of their birth (b.) or death (d.) in the format
A.H./​C.E., those of rulers by their regnal years (r.), and, in rare instances,
those of authors with their floruit (fl.).
 A MAP OF MEDIEVAL BENGAL AND ARAKAN

KUCH BIHAR River

aputra
Brahm Sibsagar
Kuch Bihar

KAMPUR
MUGHAL
BENGAL
Sylhet
Rajmahal Gauda Mymensingh
Kangla
Ga SYLHET
ng Kheturi MANIPUR
es Habiganj
Ri
Murshidabad ver
Birbhum Dhaka TRIPURA
Katrabo Udaipur

Irrawaddy River
Navadvip
Satgaon Jalalpur Feni River
Jessore
Hooghly Paragalpur
Karnafuli River
Cakraśālā

Ava
Bay of
Bengal Naf River
ARAKAN
BURMESE
Mrauk U KINGDOM

Sandoway

INDIAN Pegu
OCEAN Bassein

0 85 170 Kilometers
0 85 170 Miles

Map of Arakan and Eastern South Asian in the Seventeenth Century

 1

The Prophet of Light and Love

Nūr Muhammad in Bengal’s Mirror

A well-​known seventeenth-​century Bengali religious text opens with an

invocation of God and his creation. The author writes:

First I bow to the Lord, who is without beginning, a storehouse of riches,

he who created the fourteen realms in the blink of an eye.
He has neither beginning nor end, nor a fixed locus.
His unbroken form permeates all things.
He created the heavens, netherworlds, and the mortal world.
Adorning himself, he sports in various forms.
All know that he does not become manifest.
He takes the guise of the manifest in the hidden;
in the manifest, that of the hidden.
Whether or not the Word (śabada) takes on many forms,
it remains a single, congealed mass, devoid of vacant space.
Imperceptible in the perceptible, he rests imperceptibly.
Determining his unknown signs is utterly confounding.
No syllables can enunciate him; to contemplate him frustrates.
The void’s form emerges from the vessel (ghaṭa) of the void (śūnya).
Without Nirañjana, the Immaculate One, nothing is created therein.
Within form, the formless form ever rests.

The Muhammad Avatāra. Ayesha A. Irani, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780190089221.003.0001.
2 T H E M U H A M M A D AVA TĀ R A

Form imbues fire with heat;

it perfuses the wind with cooling fragrance.
It assumes viscosity in earth’s clay,
while it makes its descent (avatari) into water as the turtle (kūrma).
Even as the sun’s rays suffuse the moonlight,
so too does Nirañjana permeate all things.
Even as butter inheres in cows’ milk,
so too is the Lord immanent in the world.1

Anyone conversant with the Indic world’s manifold cosmogonies will rec-
ognize the Vedic notion of creation through the Word and the division of
created beings into the fourteen worlds. They might recognize the Vaiṣṇava
formulation of Viṣṇu’s periodic descent to earth in order to restore right-
eousness, or the Buddhist idea of the primal void (śūnyatā), or even the
Sāṃkhya conception of the five elements (bhūta) that form creation’s ma-
terial basis. Yet this author does not write from the standpoint of a Vedic
theologian, nor a Vaiṣṇava, even though many Vaiṣṇava texts refer to their
supreme deity, Viṣṇu, as Nirañjana, the Immaculate One, and invoke his
ten avatāras, such as the Turtle (kūrma). Neither does he write as a follower
of the Buddhist or Dharma cults, nor as a promoter of Sāṃkhya philos-
ophy. The author reveals his perspective in the very next line:

Having taken the form of Muhammad—​his own avatāra—​

Nirañjana manifests his own portion (aṃśa) to propagate himself.
From time’s beginning to its end, the Creator
shall create messengers (paygāmbar) to rightly guide all peoples.2

The author is Saiyad Sultān, and his text, the Nabīvaṃśa (“Lineage of the
Prophet”), an epic work of some 17,396 couplets that chronicles the life of
Muhammad. Beginning with creation, it records the tales of his prophetic

1. I rely on Ahmad Sharif ’s critical edition of Saiyad Sultān’s Nabīvaṃśa (NV): Nabīvaṃśa of
Saiyad Sultān, in two volumes. NV 1:1–​2. Hereafter the Nabīvaṃśa will be referred to as NV.
2. NV 1:2.
The Prophet of Light and Love 3

predecessors, Muhammad’s eventual birth and early years in Mecca, his

endeavor to come to terms with his prophetic mission and crucial role
in religious history, his persecution by the Meccans and emigration to
Medina, his numerous campaigns against the Meccans, his ultimate con-
quest of Mecca and establishment of Islam in his hometown, and, finally,
his unexpected demise shortly before his expedition to spread Islam be-
yond the Arabian peninsula. Saiyad Sultān was the first to write down
this story for the people of Bengal in their mother tongue. His efforts to
convince his people to turn to the one true God, forsaking all others, in
pivotal ways replicated Muhammad’s mission in the multireligious envi-
ronment of sixth-​and seventh-​century Arabia.
Sultān continues his praise of the Lord, employing Sāṃkhya conceptions
of the three guṇas, before invoking the various religious groups—​Jaina,
Buddhist, and Vaiṣṇava—​that were active in his world:

By harnessing the active principle (rajaḥ guṇa),

the Lord creates the world;
by means of the sentient principle (sattva guṇa),
he then maintains this world.
Through the principle of inertia (tamaḥ guṇa), he destroys the world.
Boundless is his glory through this triadic set.
He made some contented by nature,
for others he made the life of the sky-​clad Jaina monk (digāmbarī);
some he made householders, while others wanderers.
He created the scholar to contemplate scripture (śāstra),
and fools to engage in vile behavior.
He created Buddhist monks, who must beg that they may eat,
and patrons to give them alms in charity.
He planted much love for one friend in another:
within both hearts, he quickened love for the other.
To produce, between foes, discord and amity,
to rouse between them dissent, disharmony,
he created Rāvaṇa to capture Jānakī,
4 T H E M U H A M M A D AVA TĀ R A

and Rāma to slay the dreaded demons.

Nirañjana created Hari in Vr̥ndāvana to delight
in the savor (rasa) of the art of love’s pleasures.
Once he created man, he brought forth woman,
to make both fulfilled by sexual union.
Having created good and evil upon earth,
he alone performs all deeds, never anyone else.
Know that all that is done is his very doing.
All that you see is nothing but Nirañjana.3

What we have here, then, is a traditional Indic account of creation, and

the unfolding of God’s purpose in human life through the cyclical advent
of his avatāras, who unfailingly rid the world of evil, restoring harmony
to humankind. But why does the author insert Muhammad into this char-
acteristically purāṇic account? And, if the author is writing an account of
Muhammad’s life, what does he hope to accomplish by invoking Rāma
and Kr̥ṣṇa? I will argue that Saiyad Sultān’s text was designed to persuade
the people of Bengal to convert to Islam. But conversion, in the NV, is not
cast as the adoption of a new religion through a break with the old. Rather,
it is the recuperation of one’s own lost religious heritage, a re-​cognition of
the role of Bengal’s ancient gods and ancestors in Muhammad’s lineage.
Conversion, suggests Sultān, is nothing but a return to the fold.
The history of Muhammad that Sultān rewrites is, in fact, a translation
into Bangla of a wide range of Persian and Arabic texts in the medieval
Islamic Tales of the Prophets (qiṣaṣ al-​anbiyāʾ) genre. Like all such pre-
modern histories, whether Islamic or purāṇic, it adopts a historiographic
approach which I call “salvation history,” wherein all history is represented
as unfolding according to a cosmic plan.4 In seeking to make the life of
Muhammad and Islam comprehensible to a Bangla-​speaking audience,
Sultān adopts a gamut of sophisticated tactics to rewrite Bengali history,
aiming to convince his audience—​a decidedly non-​Muslim audience—​that

3. NV 1:2–​3.
4. Hagen 2017, 3.
The Prophet of Light and Love 5

they have had and will continue to have a major role in the grand teleology
of Islam, if they can but recover their ways.
If the measure of a successful translation, as the NV itself proposes, is
its ability to convert new peoples to Islam, how does this text seek to attain
such a seemingly implausible desideratum? At stake here is not whether
a single text can indeed accomplish religious conversion, but rather, how
a text might harness the power of vernacular translation to inspire such
monumental societal change. I show how the translation of salvation
history has the potential to transform a people’s imagination by altering
the stories that matter, the cultural memories and myths that mold iden-
tity, and ultimately, the dogmas that are foundational to religious doc-
trine and faith. I explore the multiple ways in which translation infuses
new meaning into received traditions, the potential challenges the author
faces in doing so, and the interpretive procedures he mastered to create
a tour de force of missionary writing. Indeed, his translation is anything
but simple, for Sultān was attempting to naturalize an Arab prophet, and
his history and doctrines, into a Bengali universe. Though the author’s
translational strategies will begin by demonstrating how Muhammad and
Islam fit into the cultural and ideological landscape of Bengal, they will
end by displacing traditional understanding with a new reading of Bengal
and Bengalis into an all-​encompassing Islamic world history.
But who was Saiyad Sultān, what world did he inhabit, and what spurred
him to take up his pen as a tool for social transformation?

A HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF CAṬ Ṭ A GRĀ MA

Dating from around the time of the first Mughal conquest of Bengal
(Gauṛa) in 1574, European accounts present the earliest external evidence
of the conversion of east Bengal’s rural populations to Islam, a phenom-
enon that these observers considered to be relatively recent.5 Writing in
1599, Francis Fernandez, surveying the field for Jesuit missionary work,

5. Eaton 1993, 132–​133.

6 T H E M U H A M M A D AVA TĀ R A

found the population of Katrābo to be entirely Muslim. This town,

situated in today’s Rupganj subdistrict of Narayanganj, Bangladesh, was
then the fortified capital established by ʿĪsá Khān, leader of the so-​called
Twelve Chieftains (bārabhūñā), militant landlords of the southeast delta,
who could not be easily subdued by the Mughals.6 Three decades before
Fernandez, Césare Federici, a Venetian traveler, observed that the people
of Sandvipa Island, in the Bay of Bengal just off the coast of Caṭṭagrāma
(Chittagong), were Muslim, and that “they and the people of Chatigan
[Chittagong] were both subjects to one King.”7 This ruler was most likely
the Afghan, Sulaymān Karrānī (r. 1565–​1572); his son, Dāʾūd Karrānī, last
of the independent sultans of Gauṛa, would be routed by the forces of the
Mughal ruler, Akbar, in 1576, at the battle of Ṭaṇḍā.8
For the next forty years the Mughals fought to subjugate the rebel-
lious Afghan military chieftains, who attracted to their dissident cause
local landlords, Portuguese rebels, and tribal leaders.9 From 1583 onward,
the Mughals shifted the focus of their military attentions from what they
called Bangālah, essentially northwest Bengal, the site of Islamic rule since
1204, to the Bhāṭi, the vast low-​lying deltaic territories that constituted east
Bengal.10 Then a hotbed of local resistance struggles against Mughal im-
perial authority, this was a region approximating the land mass of today’s
Bangladesh.11 The indefinite number of powerful landlords, who came

6. Hosten 1925, 59, and n. 29. ʿĪsá Khān died in September 1599, and his son, Mūsá Khān,
inherited the masnad of Sonargaon and took over the leadership of the Twelve Chieftains. For
more on ʿĪsá Khān and Katrābo, see A. B. M. Shamsuddin Ahmed 2014 and Husne Jahan 2014
respectively. While Eaton (1993, n. 34, 147) suggests that when Fernandez visited Katrābo ʿĪsá
Khān was still alive, Zami and Lorrea (2016, 245) suggest that Mūsá Khān, his son, had, by then,
taken over the reins of power.
7. Federici [1625] 1905, 138.
8. Karim 1992b, 28.
9. Eaton 1993, 142.
10. Throughout this monograph, I use the term “east Bengal,” in the manner of Eaton. “The
frontier between Mughal ‘Bhati’ and ‘Bangala’, ” as Eaton (1993, 146) specifies, “approximated
the present frontier between Bangladesh and West Bengal.” Cf. ibid. Map 4, 139. For the geog-
raphy of the Mughal subah of Bengal, see Sarkar (ed.), [1948] 2006, 235.
11. Eaton, 145–​146.
The Prophet of Light and Love 7

to be referred to as the Twelve Chieftains,12 rallied around the intrepid

Bengali Muslim leader, ʿĪsá Khān, the most powerful of them; he himself
controlled vast lands that included half of modern Comilla, half of Dhaka,
the whole of Mymensingh, except for Susang, and probably portions of
Rangpur, Bogra, and Pabna.13 Adopting a strategy of alternate conciliation
with and resistance to the Mughals, ʿĪsá Khān asserted his power over the
region through his naval prowess. Only after his death in 1599 was Rājā
Mān Siṅgh, Akbar’s distinguished Rājput general, able to significantly dis-
sipate local resistance via his defeat of the Afghans now regathered under
the leadership of Dāʾūd, one of ʿĪsá’s sons.
It was eventually during the Mughal emperor Jahāngīr’s reign (r.
1605–​1627) that the Bhāṭi under the rigorous governorship of Islām
Khān Chishtī (r. 1608–​1613), came to be consolidated under Mughal
rule. Mainly on account of Islām Khān’s remarkable powers of negotia-
tion with local chieftains, by the time of Ibrāhīm Khān’s governorship (r.
1617–​1624), Mūsá Khān, another of ʿĪsá Khān’s sons, and other chieftains
had all been effectively integrated into the Mughal imperial service, being
placated with leadership roles in major Mughal expeditions, such as that
against the Tripurā king.14 As Richard Eaton has shown, the time when
the Mughals were making inroads into southeast Bengal coincided with
the eastward movement of the Ganges-​Padma river system, which created
new fertile lands in Noakhali, directly northwest of Chittagong.15 In addi-
tion to subduing the Twelve Chieftains, the Mughals, as Mirzā Nathan’s
Bahāristān-​i ghaybī and recent scholarship have shown, were competing
with the Arakanese to gain access over the revenues of the fertile plains of
Noakhali.16

12. Concerning the term bārabhūñā, and its Assamese antecedents, as well as the possible iden-
tity of these chieftains and the areas they controlled, see Bhattasali 1928, 30–​36.
13. Ibid., 33–​34.
14. Eaton 1993, 155–​156.
15. Ibid., 194–​198.
16. Van Galen 2002, 156.
8 T H E M U H A M M A D AVA TĀ R A

Our author, Saiyad Sultān, however, lived farther to the east and south
of Noakhali, in Caṭṭagrāma (Chittagong). Nearly three centuries before the
Mughals established control over the Bhāṭi, Chittagong had been under
the control of the Delhi sultanate, and later under the independent sultans
of Bengal. First captured during the reign of Fakhr al-​Dīn Mubārak Shāh
(r. 1338–​1349), it was held continuously, first by the Firūzshāhī sultans of
Delhi, and later by the sultans of Bengal up to the time of Rukn al-​Dīn
Bārbak Shāh (r. 1459–​1474).17 From the rise to power of Rājā Gaṇeśa in
circa 1418 until 1588, around the time of Saiyad Sultān’s postulated birth,
Chittagong was bitterly contested by the Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist
rulers of Gauṛa, Tripura, and Arakan respectively. This was so undoubt-
edly because of its coveted harbor, which opened access to the Bay of
Bengal’s bustling intercontinental trade.
The Buddhist rulers of Arakan owed their very existence to the Bengalis,
for it was the sultan of Gauṛa, Rājā Gaṇeśa, alias Jalāl al-​Dīn (r. circa 1418–​
1433), who sheltered the fleeing Nara Mit Lha, the aspiring ruler of the
newly emerging kingdom of Arakan. With the military support of his
Arakanese Muslim or Rohingya troops, Rājā Gaṇeśa’s successor Nāṣir al-​
Dīn Māḥmūd (r. 1433–​1459) re-​established Nara Mit Lha, on a firmer footing
at Mrauk U, the Arakanese capital on the banks of the Kaladan River. From
the time of the rule of Nara Mit Lha’s brother, the kings of Arakan adopted
Muslim names in addition to their Pali titles.18 Though this dual titulature,
as Jacques Leider asserts, did not indicate Arakan’s political dependency
on Bengal,19 it suggests that the Arakanese had cultural aspirations to be-
come a part of the Persian ecumene. After 1439, Man Khari alias ʿAlī Khān
founded Rāmu, extending Arakanese control into the Chittagong region;20
he also conducted wars with the Rājās of Tripurā.21 While the Arakanese
held most of southern Chittagong during the restored Ilyās Shāhī dynasty

17. Karim 1992a, 174.

18. Leider 2002, 128–​129; also see Qanungo 1988, 286.
19. Leider 2002, 129.
20 . Ibid.
21. Subrahmanyam 2002, 111.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
264. Hist. Nat. Lib. II, 55. «Non è lecito ardere un uomo privato in questo
modo di vita; la religione ci tramanda doversi seppellire sotto terra.»

265. La peine de mort, 1871.

266. Il mio dotto amico dott. Gaetano Pini, fra i più strenui propugnatori della
cremazione, perchè la conferenza del 6 aprile riuscisse di pratico
vantaggio, propose il seguente ordine del giorno, che ne concreta lo
scopo e che venne unanimemente accolto. «L’Assemblea fa voti che
nella prossima discussione, la quale avrà luogo in Parlamento, intorno al
progetto del nuovo Codice sanitario, già approvato dal Senato del
Regno, venga ammesso all’art. 185, come facoltativa, la cremazione dei
cadaveri, lasciandone ai sindaci dei Comuni la sorveglianza.» L’altro
amico mio, Mauro Macchi, deputato, promise appoggiare tale mozione
in Parlamento.

267. Sat. VI, 33 e segg.

La cena
Funebre irato obblia l’erede, e fetide
Dà l’ossa all’urna, il cinnamo svanito
Non curando, e le casie ammarascate.
Trad. V. Monti.

268. Vedi Cicerone, De Legibus. Lib. 2, c. 55.

269. «Essersi sovente ascoltati uomini preclari della nostra città avvezzi a
dire: allorquando vedevano le immagini de’ maggiori, queste
gagliardissimamente accendere l’animo loro a virtù: vale a dire non tanta
efficacia aver quella cera o figura, quanto crescere in petto agli egregi
uomini la memoria delle loro gesta con ardente incitamento, nè questo
mai sedarsi, finchè la loro virtù non ne abbia raggiunta la fama e la
gloria.»

270. Vv. 151-152.

271. Vv. 99-100.

272.

Dal portar dono ai morti il nome prese

Di Feralia quel dì.
Fastorum. Lib. II. Tr. Bianchi.

273. Fasti. Lib. II:

 Hanno il suo onore anche i sepolcri: imponi,
L’ombre avite a placar, qual che tu sii,
Sul rogo alzato non pregiati doni.
Poco chieggono i Mani: ufficii pii
Presso loro a un gran dono han peso eguale.
Non ha la bassa Stige ingordi iddii.
Ad appagar lor brame un coccio vale
Di serti a biotto ivi gettati ornato,
E sparse biade intorno e poco sale:
E sciolte vïolette e pan bagnato
Nel vin pretto: abbia pur cose sì fatte
Il coccio in mezzo della via lasciato.
Nè vieto il più; ma queste ancor sono atte
L’ombre a placare: al posto altar vicino
Aggiunger dei preci e parole adatte.
Tr. G. B. Bianchi.

274. «Cena ferale in picciola scodella.» V. 85.

275. Orazio, Lib. III, Od. XIV.

. . . . Di fresche spose o nuova

Schiera, o fanciulli, il vostro infausti detti
Labbro non muova.
Trad. Gargallo.

276.

Vedrò almen ciò che dir mi fia permesso

Di color le cui gelide faville
La via Flaminia e la Latina asconde.
Trad. Gargallo.

277. «Così i monumenti sepolcrali, acciò ammoniscano coloro che passano

lungo la via sè essere stati, ed essi essere parimenti mortali.» De Lingua
Latina, Lib. VI, 1, 5.

278.

Tolgalo il ciel dal collocar mia fossa

Lungo il rumor di popoloso calle
Che turbi il sonno a le mie placid’ossa.
Così degli amator l’alme più fide
E le tombe si fan favola al vulgo
 Che gusta i nomi più famosi e ride.
Copra me pure in solitario canto
Terren, defunto, e sovra lui distenda
Arbor frondosa di bell’ombra il manto:
Me ancor di sabbia inosservato acervo
Chiuso a le belve: sol che il nome mio
Non sia bersaglio al passeggier protervo.
Lib. III, Eleg. 16, vv. 25-30.
Trad. Vismara.

279.

. . . . ecco, una mano

De’ miei resti sostiene il pondo intero.
Lib. IV, Eleg. XI. — Trad. id.

280. «Taluno costituiva a sè ed alla propria famiglia.»

281. «Quelli che il padre di famiglia acquistò per sè e suoi eredi, o per diritto
ereditario.»

282. «Questo monumento non segue gli eredi; o non passa agli eredi.»

283. Lib. I. Sat. 8:

Mille il ceppo da fronte e lungo l’agro

Piedi trecento ivi assegnava: esclusi
Dal monumento rimanean gli eredi.
Trad. Gargallo.

284. I Sepolcri, v. 101-103.

285. Vv. 114-117; 124-125.

286. Fu riprodotta la bella memoria del Carrara dal Giornale del Tribunali di
Milano, Anno II, N. 225 e 226, ossia 20 e 21 settembre 1873.

287. «Marco Cerrinio Restituto, Augustale, in terreno concesso da decreto

de’ Decurioni.»

288. «Ad Anio Vejo di Marco, Duumviro per la giustizia, quinqueviro per la
seconda volta, tribuno de’ soldati eletto dal popolo; per decreto de’
Decurioni.»
289. «A Mammia figlia di Publio (oppure di Porcio se il monumento vicino è di
suo padre o d’alcuno della sua famiglia) sacerdotessa pubblica, luogo di
sepoltura dato per decreto de’ Decurioni.»

290. «Questo spazio di venticinque piedi quadrati fu accordato a Marco

Porcio figlio di Marco per decreto de’ Decurioni.»

291. «Mi sia il nuovo anno fausto e felice.»

292. Ep. 1, lib. 2. Vedi anche la lettera sua a Marco Mario, Epist. 3, lib. 7.

293. «Ad Aulo Umbricio Scauro Menenio figlio di Aulo, duumviro di giustizia, i
Decurioni decretarono il collocamento d’un monumento, duemila
sesterzi [294] pe’ suoi funerali e una statua equestre nel foro. Scauro
padre al proprio figlio.» Taluni, in luogo di Umbricio, la incompleta parola
...RICIO, lessero per Fabricio; altri per Castricio: io ho seguito chi lesse
Umbricio.

294. Appena questa somma, che corrisponderebbe a 400 lire, poteva bastare
alla spesa del rogo e della cerimonia funebre. Certo le altre spese, come
i ludi gladiatorj, sarannosi sopportati dalla famiglia.

295. «Al genio protettore di Tiche venerea di Giulia figliuola d’Augusto.»

296.

Oggi, o Giunone, nel tuo dì natale

Accogli i santi dell’incenso onori
D’un’esperta fanciulla e genïale.
Mia trad.

297. Tab. 10, n. 1, e 2.

298. Lib. XVI degli Annali. Trad. Davanzati.

299. «Servilia all’amico dell’anima.»

300. «A Cajo Calvenzio Quieto Augustale, venne per la sua munificenza

concesso da decreto dei Decurioni e per Consenso del popolo l’onor del
bisellio. [301]»

301. Questa munificenza non lascerebbe supporre che avesse comperato

l’onor del bisellio? Stando a un’iscrizione edita da Grutero, un C. Titus
Chresimus a Suessa l’avrebbe pur comperato col dono di mille sesterzi,
pari a L. 200.
302. «A N. Istacidio Eleno maestro del Borgo Augusto.» «A N. Istacidia figlia
di Scapido.»

303. «A N. Istacidio Eleno maestro del Borgo Augusto.» «A Istacidio

Gennaro.» «A Mesonia Satulla. In profondità 15 piedi; di fronte 15
piedi.»

304. Vol. I. Capit. IV, pag. 101.

305. «Cajo Munazio Alimeto visse anni 57.»

306. «A Marco Allejo Lucio Libella padre, edile, duumviro, prefetto

quinquennale ed a Marco Allejo suo figlio, decurione che visse
diciassett’anni. Il suolo pel monumento è stato loro publicamente
concesso. Alleja Decimilla figlia di Marco, sacerdotessa publica di
Cerere, lo fece erigere allo sposo ed al figlio.»

307. «Se vuoi esserlo in Roma, otterrai: in Pompei è malagevole cosa.»

308. «A Lucio Cejo figlio di Lucio, Menenio: a Lucio Labeone per la secondo
volta duumviro di giustizia e quinquennale, Menonaco liberto.»

309. Pompeja. Pag. 92.

310. Pompei descritta da Carlo Bonucci.

311. «M. Arrio Diomede liberto di ... Maestro del sobborgo Augusto Felice,
alla sua memoria ed a quella de’ suoi.»

312. Paradiso XVII: 130.

313. Ho già ricordato e circondato di somma lode in questa mia opera il

romanzo storico di Luigi Castellazzo, che si ascose sotto il pseudonimo
di Anselmo Rivalta, dal titolo Tito Vezio: ebbene qui m’occorre di
rammentarlo ancora come quello che con tale suo magnifico lavoro
pose in bella e appassionata azione la vita pubblica e privata de’
Romani. Coloro che si faranno a leggerlo — ed io auguro che meglio sia
conosciuto dagli italiani senza abbadare alla irruente consorteria che
tenta mettere lo spegnitoio sugli ingegni e sulle opere di chi non è di sua
parte, poichè il Castellazzi è strenuo campione della italiana democrazia
— oltre l’ognor crescente diletto, vi raccoglieranno messe di ottimo
insegnamento.

314. Gerusalemme Liberata. C. I, st. 3.

315. Chateaubriand aveva già raccolto la censura da molti fatta al sistema di
tutto quanto asportare e chiudere nei musei che si rinvenga
d’interessante negli scavi. «Ce que l’on fait aujourd’hui me semble
funeste, ravies à leurs places naturelles, les curiosités les plus rares
s’ensevelissent dans des cabinets, ou elles se sont plus en rapport avec
les objets environnants» (Voyage en Italie vol. XIII pag. 88). Ma poi il
medesimo autore, immemore di questa sua censura, sulla fine dello
stesso volume, così mostra l’inconveniente dell’opposto sistema che
sembrava aver egli suggerito nelle sue prime parole. «Quelques
personnes n’avoient pensé qu’au lieu d’enlever de Pompei les diverses
objets que l’on y a trouvés, et d’en former un museum a Portici, l’on
auroit mieux fait des les laisser à leur place: ce qui auroit représenté une
ville ancienne avec tout ce qu’elle contenoit. Cette idée est spécieuse et
ceux qui la propoient n’ont pas réfléchi que beaucoup de choses se
seroient gatées par le contact du l’air, et qu’indépendamment de cet
inconvénient on aurait couru le risque de voir plusieurs objets dérobés
par des voyageurs peu délicats: c’est qui n’arrive que trop souvent.» A
tuttociò si cercò d’ovviare col mettere in Pompei talune opere in copia,
trasportando nel Museo gli originali.

316. I Sepolcri, v. 231.

317. Ercolano e Pompei.

318. Appendice al Capitolo XVIII.

319. Così ne resero conto i Soprastanti agli Scavi nella loro Relazione
ufficiale dei lavori eseguiti dal 1 novembre al 31 dicembre 1868.
«19 (novembre). Proseguendosi tuttora lo scoprimento della su cennata
località, nella penultima di esse, accosto al muro esterno, ed all’altezza
di circa quattro metri dal pavimento, si è rinvenuta una testa virile in
marmo di grandezza naturale, scheggiata al naso ed alle orecchie...
«24. Nella stessa località indicata il giorno 19, all’altezza di circa tre
metri dal suolo, si è rinvenuta un’altra testa virile in marmo, anche di
grandezza naturale, un poco scheggiata al naso, e mancante della parte
anteriore del collo, ov’era stata restaurata dagli antichi, osservandosi un
pernetto di bronzo che sosteneva il pezzo che manca.» Giornale degli
Scavi. Nuova serie, n. 5, p. 119.

320. Plutarco. Vita degli uomini illustri, vol. 4. Vita di Pompeo. Versione
italiana di Gerolamo Pompei.

321. Vell. Paterc. Lib. II; Plin. Hist. Nat. lib. VII, cap. 10.
322. Il Conte Cassi, parafrasando al solito, così rende questi versi del libro II.
728-730.

Ma suo (della Fortuna) malgrado ancor se’ Magno. E mentre

Te e la tua donna, e i figli tuoi percuote
Un bando indegno, in ogni cor dimori
Con pietosa memoria: e in quel che cerchi
Un rifugio fra l’armi a’ tuoi penati.
In sulla poppa stessa ove t’assidi,
Esule glorioso, a te fan cerchio
I Consoli, il Senato, Italia e Roma,
E ovunque movi è a te seguace il mondo.

323. Id. Vita di Marco Bruto; vol. 5.

324. Id. ibid.

325. Ad Atticum; lib. XIV, ep. I.

326. Paris, Librairie Hachette, terza ediz. 1874.

327. Nuova Serie n. 6, pag. 133.

328. Appendice al Capitolo primo.

329. Volume I, pag. 38.

330. L’incendio vesuviano del 25 aprile 1872. Conferenza, ecc. — Napoli

Stabilim. Tip. Partenopeo 1872.

331. Il Piccolo di Napoli del 26 Aprile 1872.

332. Incend. Vesuv. pag. 11.

333. Napoli. Stamperia del Fibreno, 1873.

 Nota del Trascrittore

Ortografia e punteggiatura originali sono state

mantenute, correggendo senza annotazione minimi
errori tipografici.
Copertina creata dal trascrittore e posta nel pubblico
dominio.
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