Vakkom Moulavi - Early Life and Family

Early Life and Family

Moulavi was born in 1873 in Vakkom, Chirayinkil Taluk, Thiruvanthapuram in Travancore. His family had ancestral roots to Madurai and Hyderabad, and many of his relatives had worked for the military of the state government. Maulavi was proficient in many languages including Arabic, Hindusthani, Persian, Tamil, Sanskrit and English.

His father, a prominent merchant, engaged a number of scholars from distant places, including an itinerant Arab savant, to teach him every subject he wished to learn. Moulavi made such rapid progress, that some of his teachers soon found that their stock of knowledge was exhausted and at least one of them admitted that had learnt from his student more than he could teach him.

Moulavi's son Vakkom Abdul Kadar (Junior) was a writer,journalist and literary critic and another son, Mohammed Eeza was a writer and scholar of Islamic studies. One of his nephews, Vakkom Majeed, was an Indian freedom fighter and a former member of Travancore-Cochin State Assembly and another nephew, P.Habeeb Mohamed, was the first Muslim judge of the Travancore High Court of Kerala.

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