Muslim Women, Reform and Princely Patronage

Sulṭān Jahān, the Begam of Bhopal (r. 1901–26), was a tiny woman who ruled a tiny state in Central India. During her lifetime, she was frequently compared to another tiny woman who ruled over a mighty empire in the nineteenth century. The comparison between Sulṭān Jahān and Victoria, seemingly incongruous, is not inapt, for the Begam was a powerful and influential individual. By her oratory, her organizational skill, and especially her patronage, she founded schools for girls, hospitals, maternal-child health centres, and numerous women's organizations both in her own state and elsewhere in India. Her reformist activities bear eloquent testimony to the fact that princely rulers were not simply decorative adjuncts to British control in India. They could, and did, naturalize reform by defining social and educational change in terms of their own religious traditions, and gave such change the added prestige of their royal support. Sulṭān Jahān was a

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