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Title: The First Firangis
Subtitle: Remarkable Stories of Heroes, Healers, Charlatans, Courtesans & Other Foreigners Who Became Indian
Author: Jonathan Gil Harris
Narrator: Fajer Al-Kaisi
Format: Unabridged
Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
Language: English
Release date: 01-01-17
Publisher: Audible Studios
Genres: History, World
Publisher's Summary:
The Indian subcontinent has been a land of immigrants for thousands of years: waves of migration from Persia, Central Asia, Mongolia, the Middle East and Greece have helped create India's exceptionally diverse cultural mix. In the centuries before the British Raj, when the Mughals were the preeminent power in the subcontinent, a wide array of migrants known as 'firangis' made India their home. In this book, Jonathan Gil Harris, a 21st-century firangi, tells their stories.
These gripping accounts are of healers, soldiers, artists, ascetics, thieves, pirates and courtesans who were not powerful or privileged. Often they were escaping poverty or religious persecution; many were brought here as slaves; others simply followed their spirit of adventure. Some of these migrants were absorbed into the military. Others fell in with religious communities - the Catholics of Rachol, the underground Jews of Goa, the fakirs of Ajmer, the Sufis of Delhi. Healers from Portugal and Italy adapted their medical practice in accordance with local traditions. Gifted artisans from Europe joined Akbar's and Jahangir's royal ateliers and helped create enduring works of art. And though almost invisible within the archival record, some migrant women, such as the Armenian Bibi Juliana and the Portuguese Juliana Dias da Costa, found a home in royal Mughal harems.
Jonathan Gil Harris uses his own experience of becoming Indian through the process of acclimatizing to the country's culture, customs, weather, food, clothes and customs to bring the stories of these shadowy figures to vivid life.
Members Reviews:
So survival might have been a great reason as well
Interesting collection of characters that have made the cut. Even more personal connection is Mr. Harris's intro before each chapter It points out one more possibility of tremendous exodus of explorers from southern Europe to India and else-escape from the inquisition. So survival might have been a great reason as well. Mr. Harris is apparently not a historian but deals with history deftly, pointing out what India really is a disparate group of people from all different backgrounds.
Five Stars
love
This book highlights some very interesting characters for sure, ...
This book highlights some very interesting characters for sure, but the author tends to cover the same ground in each chapter. You also spend more time reading imaginings of these historical figures lives than content informed by primary documents. Still, an entertaining read.
That did Not prevent him from being buried within the complex of The Greatest Mosque in Mughal India
A fascinating story of Sephardic Jews, Armenians, Portuguese, Venetians, Engishmen, Abyssinians who made their home
in Mughal India --- some made a fortune, some did not, one is recognized as a Sufi Saint.
---
His is the strangest story of all. A Successful trader from a thriving Jewish community in Armenia, with a gift for languages,
who became a Naked Fakir, besotted with his 1st pupil, a writer of poetry, who contributed to a Book on Religions and was eventually executed on the orders of a Mughal Emperor. That did Not prevent him from being buried within the complex of The Greatest Mosque in Mughal India, attracting both Hindu and Muslim devotees.
