User:Captain Killy/Sandbox Maneckji Limji Hataria

Maneckji Limji Hataria
Born	1813 Surat, Gujarat, India
Died	1890

Maneckji Limji Hataria

Maneckji Limji Hataria (1813–1890), , was an Indian Parsi-Zoroastrian scholar and civil rights activist, who took up the cause of the Zoroastrians of Iran. Through his work was an community organizer and advocate in Iran, Hataria founded the first Anjoman-i- Zartoštīān (Society of Zoroastrians) in Iran; anjomans of this sort would go on to become a popular form of civic organization among Zoroastrians and other Iranians. Hataria is referred to as Mānekǰī Ṣāḥeb in Persian sources, and was given the local Sufi honorific of Darvīš-e Fānī by residents of Kerman.

Biography

Early Life

Hataria was born at the village of Mora Sumali near Surat, in Gujarat, India in 1813; and as he himself tells, earned his own bread from the age of fifteen, traveling widely as a commercial agent in India and Afgahanistan. He came to be known as a successful and self-reliant businessman, and was well regarded among the Parsis of India for his devotion to his Zoroastrian faith and his mastery of Persian language and literature .

Society for the Amelioration of the Conditions of the Zoroastrians in Persia

The deteriorating conditions of Zoroastrians in Iran—the religion's birthplace—had long been a source of concern for the much more prosperous Parsis. It was understood that economic pressures and state policy of recent decades had forced many into poverty, caused the deterioration of streams of religious knowledge transmission, and drivin an increasing number of conversions to Islam. A recent issue of a European journal of Oriental studies had even included a plea that "the opulent Parsis of Bombay [...] send a mission of inquiring to their brethren in Yazd and Kirman" Starting in 1834, charitable funds collected by eminent Parsis in Bombay had been sent to Yazd under the leadership of Burjorji Framji Panday, but the lack of clear channels of communication and trustworthy intermediaries made it difficult to guarantee they reached their destination, and a sustained flow of funds was not established. Panday also assisted a number of Persians to emigrate to Bombay and settle among the Parsis, but similar difficulties prevented this effort from assisting large number of émigrés.

In 1854 the Panday's younger brother Meherwanji, assisted by other prominent Parsis of Bombay, including Dinshaw Maneckji Petit and Kharshedji Rustomji Cama, founded The Society for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Zoroastrians of Persia (SACI), which aimed to elevate the social and economic conditions of Zoroastrian in Iran, then suffering under the persecution of the Qajar regime. Specifically SACI would work for to petition the government to remove the requirement that Zoroastrians pay the jizya, and to lift the ban on Zoroastrians traveling beyond their hometown.

Actively engaged in a the ongoing discourses of the Parsi community, Hataria developed a desire to visit Iran, but had long been prevented from doing so by concerns regarding the safety of Zoroastrian travelers. When changes in the political conditions of Iran seemed to herald the possibility of safe travel, Hataria obtained documents from the British government of Bombay which recommended that British officers in Tehran and Bushihr welcome and assist him. Hearing of his plans, the SACI appointed Hataria—largely on the strength of his prior experience traveling for commercial purposes—as the society's first emissary. It was hoped that his British citizenship would offer him some measures of protection in his travels.

Travel to Iran

In the course of his travel to Persia, Hataria met with Baháʼu'lláh—then a prominent Bábí, later the prophet-founder of the Baháʼí Faith—in Baghdad. This meeting initiated a pattern of correspondence between the two which would continue for many years, as would ongoing contact between Hataria and other Parsi agents with members of the nascent Bahá'í community of Iran. Some of the correspondence between Hataria and Bahá'u'lláh is preserved in a compilation of Bahá'í sacred texts entitled Tabernacle of Unity.

In Yazd, Hataria established a Council of Zoroastrians, which succeeded in convincing a number of Iranian Zoroastrians to emigrate to India (where they are today known as Parsis). Hataria may also have been instrumental in obtaining a remission of the jizya poll tax for his co-religionists in 1882.

Manekji preached the advantages of collective social work and communal unity. He urged the Zoroastrians of Yazd and Kerman to form anjuman societies, based somewhat on the pattern of the Bombay Parsi . Reports of early activities, sent by Manekji to Bombay, show that amongst other matters, the Kerman society attended to the restoration of the fire temple there. Similarly, hearing of the efforts of Manekji, the Bombay Parsis (led by Sir Dinshaw Petit, whose wife Sakarbai was from her mother's side of Iranian ancestry) collected funds for the repair of the Atash Behram (not the same as the present one, which dates to 1932). A bust of Manekji stands in the entrance gallery of the present-day Atash Behram at Yazd.

Legacy

Associations with literary figures of Iran

Maneckji Limji Hataria was the first envoy of Indian Parsis with the history of being interested in Iran and ancient relics of Iran as well as being affected by Neo Zoroastrian or Dasatiri text entered Iran. Despite his first mission was ameliorating the situation of Zoroastrian lives in Iran, but because of the reasons which were mentioned, a little later he was linked to the scholars and writers of Iran in the Nasseri era. he corresponded with Gobineau (see Boyce)

References & Further Reading

• Autobiographical
  • Hataria, Manekji Limji (1865). "A Parsi Mission to Iran". Archived from the original on 26 September 2007. Retrieved 22 August 2006. (An English language translation of Hataria's own report)
• Biographical
  • Boyce, Mary (1969). "Maneckji Limji Hataria in Iran". K.R. Cama Oriental Institute Golden Jubilee Volume. K.R. Cama Oriental Institute. pp. 19–31. ISBN 978-1-234-56789-7.
  • Deboo, Malcolm Minoo (2006). "Seth Maneckji Limji Hataria: The Martin Luther King of Zoroastrianism".
  • Eduljee, K. E. (2017a). "Surat: Zoroastrian-Parsees & Their Influence". Zoroastrian Heritage Institute. Retrieved 12 April 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  • Eduljee, K. E. (2017b). "Yazd Schools, Markerabad". Zoroastrian Heritage Insitute. Retrieved 12 April 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

Eduljee, K. E. (2017c). "Surat: Irani Zoroastrian Renaissance. The Benefactors. Parsi Assistance". Zoroastrian Heritage Institute. Retrieved 12 April 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

• • Hajianpour, Hamid; Aidi, Abdalmajid (4 September 2017). "Maneckji Limji Hataria and His Iranism Interactions with Elites of the Naaser-al-ddinshah Era (1847-1895)". Journal of History Culture and Art Research. 6 (4): 212–232. doi:10.7596/taksad.v6i4.1128.
  • Kasheff, M. (2012). "ANJOMAN-E ZARTOŠTĪĀN". Encyclopedia Iranica. Vol. II. pp. 90–95.
  • Maneck, Susan Stiles (1984). "Early Zoroastrian Conversions to the Bahá'í Faith in Yazd, Iran". In Cole, Juan R.; Momen, Moojan (eds.). From Iran East to West. Los Angeles: Kalimát Press. pp. 67–94. ISBN 0-933770-40-5.
  • Ošīdarī, Jehangir (1974). Tārīḵ-e Pahlavī wa Zartoštīān. Tehran.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Ringer, Monica (2009). "Reform Transplanted: Parsi Agents of Change amongst Zoroastrians in Nineteenth-Century Iran". Iranian Studies. 42 (4). Taylor & Francis: 549–960 – via JSTOR.
  • Soroushian, Mehrborzin (2006). "Manekji Limji Hateria".

Category:Parsi people

Category:Activists from Gujarat

Category:1813 births

Category:1890 deaths

Category:Indian Zoroastrians

Category:Indian expatriates in Iran

Category:People from Surat district

Category:Zoroastrian studies scholars

Category:19th-century translators