Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) has described a memoir written and edited by former Legislative Council chairman Jabir Husain as a great service done to historians.

The book, Sakarat: Shah Mohammad Hashim Bahar Hasainabadi, written in Urdu, is a dispassionate narration of the impact of colonial modernity on the landed elite. With multifaceted cultural details, the work is about the fall of landlords narrated by Sufi saint Shah Mohammad Hashim (who died in 1929).

Husain, a former English teacher in a Munger college, has been writing and editing books since retiring from the Rajya Sabha in 2012 after a six-year stint.

History teacher at AMU Mohammad Sajjad described the work as “a great service done to researchers of history” for land litigations in the colonial law courts in Munger, Gaya, Patna and Muzaffarpur have been elaborately dealt with in the 450-page book.