Printing Science in the Princely Hyderabad: Nawab Fakhruddin Khan Shamsul Umara’s Epistemological Interventions

This paper will analyze the epistemological interventions of Nawab Fakhruddin Khan Shamsul Umara in the field of science and knowledge production in the princely state of Hyderabad. He established a printing press in the state in 1834 and founded an institute of learning. He translated science books from English and French to Urdu language. The books were dealing with multiple subjects including astronomy, geography, biology, physics etc. Instead of passively receiving ‘western science’ he contested it through bringing religion to epistemological terrain and made the science/reason speak to religion/tradition in a mutually constitutive way. He played the role of a ‘middleman’ to introduce printing technology in Hyderabad like many other figures in the various Muslim contexts. This paper will be an engagement with multiple questions including science, technology, religion, modernity, knowledge production and power. In order to establish connection between multiple themes this paper will utilize archival data and biography as primary materials. This paper will also examine the encounters between the British and the Nizam, the ruler of the state regarding the introduction of print in the state. Rather than analyzing the princely state of Hyderabad in opposition to British India this paper will consider it as a distinct and ‘minor sovereign’ space and contextualize science and technology in their socio- cultural and political backgrounds. This paper will contribute to the studies on print and science in the princely contexts as it has been neglected in South Asian studies.