The Nouratan

The following is a response written for my undergraduate Trauma Communication course at USC.

Select and describe the significance of an artifact that you would include in an archive to represent your family’s collective “story” and identity.

The Nouratan

When I think about my family’s history, I think of my mother’s jewelry collection.

In my culture, jewelry is not delicate and simple, as is the style in current Western fashion. Our elaborate necklaces, earrings, and bracelets resemble the jewelry pieces made and worn by monarchs throughout antiquity. While the crown jewels sit in a museum, our family jewelry is easily accessed from my mother’s closet. I started wearing my mother’s jewelry from a young age, but it wasn’t until my research for this blog post that I learned of its history. After many What’s App conversations with aunties in Karachi, I pieced together the story of my family.

Most of our jewelry was passed down from my great great grandmother, Maqbool un Nisa, born in 1900. In South Asian culture, jewelry is made to commemorate a marriage. When Maqbool married Muhammad Ibrahim, a wealthy businessman, in 1920, many elaborate pieces were made to celebrate the occasion. At that time, my ancestors also had elaborate trouseus, or wedding chests filled with clothing woven and embroidered with real gold and silver. It was incredibly fun to learn about the details of Maqbool’s marriage, especially as a lover of historical romance. However, it was Maqbool’s daughter, Haseena Khatun (Lady Haseena) who’s story inspires.

Haseena’s full title was Haseena Khatun bint Mohammad Ibrahim (bint = daughter of). She was the eldest of six sisters who were known as the “Ibrahim Sisters.” Blessed to be born into a wealthy family, each of the sisters received beautiful jewelry and substantial trouseus for their weddings. Despite being married young, Haseena and all of her sisters were encouraged to go to school. Two of them, Shakila and Razia, even went on to get their Master’s degrees. Haseena, the eldest, was witty, social, and a born leader. She became the family’s matriarch during her mother’s lifetime and handled all of her sister’s marriages, a job typically reserved for fathers or brothers. As the eldest, Haseena inherited most of her mother’s jewelry.

Haseena Khatun and her family lived comfortably in Lucknow, India, but when the Partition of India occured in 1947, they were Muslims living in hostile territory. The partition displaced 10-20 million people along religious lines (Kosinski & Elahi, 2012) and an estimated two million lives were lost on both sides (Talbot & Singh, 2009). Startling numbers of women were raped and abducted during riots, and by 1954, 9,032 Hindu women were recovered from Pakistan and 20,728 Muslim women were recovered from India (Menon & Bhasin, 1998). Shortly after Haseena gave birth to my grandmother, Shaheena Parveen, in 1949, she led our family’s exodus from India to Karachi, Pakistan. On the trip, Haseena directed the women to sew their precious jewelry into the seams of their clothing and blankets. It was a great risk, with numerous lootings of Muslim transports and murders over valuables, but the jewels meant a great deal to the women in our family. Haseena showed immense resilience and bravery, and I cannot imagine her fear in making such a dangerous trip with her newborn child. My family escaped the bloodshed, but many were not so lucky.

Everyone arrived safely and my family went on to have a good life in Karachi. Haseena Khatun’s daughter, Shaheena Parveen, grew up to marry Syed Sarfaraz Haider Rizvi. My mother, Bushra Sarfaraz Haider Rizvi, is Shaheena’s eldest daughter, thus inheriting most of the family jewelry collection. My mother shares her jewelry generously with her younger sisters and me. As her only daughter, I will eventually inherit the collection.

It was difficult to choose, but the Nouratan should honor our family’s legacy in an archive. The Nouratan is an elaborate necklace featuring nine different stones including pearls, uncut diamonds, turquoise, emeralds, rubies, and more. My mother wore it along with its accompanying jewelry items to one of her wedding ceremonies, and it is my favorite piece in her collection. I like to think that each stone in the Nouratan represents the many strong women in my family. Many of us have been through unimaginable hardships and have emerged with strength, grace, and beauty, just like the way the Nouratan and its stones were forged.

I could have chosen a military medal or governmental honor from the men in my family, as is typical in special collection archives, but I felt it vital to highlight the women. While Pakistan is a patriarchal society, my bloodline is filled with incredibly strong women who have triumphed over their male counterparts. To the history books, Haseena Khatun may have simply been a well-off housewife, but I see beyond it. I see a strong woman who kept her family alive during a very frightening time. That is why there is no better artifact than her Nouratan to represent my family and our history.

For a long time, women were unable to receive an education, rarely awarded for their achievements, and were widely left out of the historical narrative. In many places around the world, women are still treated this way. We face violence and discrimination, often with very few rights and little justice. Historically, if women were not allowed to own land, jewelry was their secret weapon. Even today, jewelry can be an escape hatch, the one thing we are allowed to keep, used to buy our freedom. The legacy of jewelry proves that beauty and femininity are not to be overlooked. If anything, femininity undoubtedly represents resilience, power, and leadership.

My mother, Bushra Faruqi, at one of her traditional wedding ceremonies in 1999.

References:

• Kosiński, Leszek, and Khondkar Maudood Elahi. Population Redistribution and Development in South Asia. D. Reidel Publ. Co., 1985.

• Menon, Ritu, and Kamla Bhasin. Borders & Boundaries: Women in India's Partition. Rutgers University Press, 1998.

• Talbot, Ian, and Gurharpal Singh. The Partition of India. Cambridge University Press, 2014.