Baron Umar Rolf von Ehrenfels
Baron Umar Rolf von Ehrenfels (born 28 April 1901 in Prague - died 7 February 1980 in Neckargemünd, Heidelberg, Germany) was a prominent Muslim of Austrian origin.
His father was the Roman Catholic Baron Christian von Ehrenfels (1859–1932), professor of philosophy at the German part of Prague University.
Rolf as the only son of Christian Freiherr von Ehrenfels inherited the title but he had to discard it according to new Austrian laws in 1920.
[3] Umar Rolf Ehrenfels died on 7 February 1980, aged 78, in Neckargemuend, Germany having been guest professor at Heidelberg University and co- founder of its South Asia Institute 1961–71.
Rolf's eldest sister Elfriede "Elfi" Hartmann married a widower with three children and had her own home from the early 1920s.
His sister Imma Ehrenfels married Wilhelm "Willy" (von) Bodmershof (Schuster) and they settled at Rastbach castle for life.
His first wife Ellen Feld can be seen as she has a part in a film, Das grosse Sehnen, for which Rolf wrote the manuscript.
In Berlin, Omar got attached to the Wilmersdorfer Moschee of Ahmadiyya Anjuman located in Brienner Strasse near Fehrbelliner Platz.
Christian Ehrenfels major work Kosmogonie (Jena 1916, English translation by M. Focht New York: Comet Press, 1948) fascinated them.
[citation needed] In an attempt to overcome the grief at his beloved father's death Umar Rolf made a journey to India in 1932–33.
Abdullah, Baron Omar made a lecture tour from Lahore in the north to Hyderabad in the south as an advocate of the Ahmadiya movement.
Mahatma Gandhi's close man Vallabhbhai Patel (1875–1950) was the patron of Der Orientbund in Vienna, which Umar Rolf founded 1932 and presided until his escape to India 1938.
What Ehrenfels saw of women's position on the tour 1932-33 made him choose to study social anthropology at Vienna University.
He was known as a convert to Islam and founding president of the multiracial students' society in Vienna called Der Orientbund or Islamischer Kulturbund.
As an active anti- fascist Umar Rolf had to flee to save his life after the Nazi occupation of Austria 13 March 1938.
[13] Franz Kafka's friend and biographer Max Brod (1884–1968) was editor of Prager Tageblatt that had published many texts by Rolf.
Brod managed to warn Rolf, who was lecturing in Prague, not to go back to Vienna, where he was on the Nazi death list.
It is anthropological textbook for students in two volumes translated from Ehrenfels' manuscript in English into Urdu by Dr. Syed Abid Hussain.
Ehrenfels was deprived of his liberty until 1946 in two British India internment camps most of the time at Yercaud, a hill station.
He was awarded the Sarat Chandra Roy Golden Medal for original contributions to Anthropology by the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal.
In 1957–58, he held a Swedish grant to make his longed for field work in East Africa, described in the book The Light Continent (1960), translated into German and Telugu: Kaanti Seema.
She made great efforts in restoring the Lichtenau and Rastbach castles after the damages during the war as well as organising the Ehrenfels Archive.
[citation needed] A recurrent theme in Ehrenfels' writings from the early 1920s was dress codes and women's rights.
Ehrenfels insisted that both men and women should stick to the pre- colonial traditions of the tropics which was to leave the upper part of the body uncovered.
In British India there was legislation punishing non- indigenous men for "disgracing European dignity" by wearing the dhoti.
After his escape from the Nazis in Austria after March 1938, Ehrenfels was received as a guest of Nizam's government thanks to Sir Akbar Hydari.
