Zubaida Yazdani (27 April 1916 – 11 June 1996) was an Indian historian specialized in the history of the Deccan Plateau and the Nizam State of Hyderabad, in India.
Her book Hyderabad During the Residency of Henry Russell, 1811–1820 [2] was a scholarly exposition of the Indian Subsidiary Alliance system.
[3] Her scholarship explores the topics based on the painstaking use of original records, documents that had been overlooked by previous investigators.
Yazdani also supervised the translation of Nazir Ahmad Dehlvi's novel Taubat-Al-Nusuh (English: Repentance Of Nussooh: The Tale Of A Muslim Family A Hundred Years Ago) from Urdu into English: A literary work of the late 19th century on the life of Muslims in India.
Her father was the director of archaeology in the Nizam's government in Hyderabad and was instrumental in the preservation of the caves at Ajanta and Ellora, which are cultural assets of Buddhist and Hindu religious art.
[citation needed] Zubaida Yazdani was married to Mir Yaseen Ali Khan, who was an Urdu poet, which published in literary magazines in India.
[1] When asked many years later during an interview about her memories of Indira Gandhi, Zubaida Yazdani commented that "She was a very shy student.
In her own words: "Students pursued normal courses, contented themselves with lunches of cheese sandwiches and apples, and used the shelters only when the sirens sounded.
"[1]On her return home to Hyderabad she was appointed lecturer (1942) and then reader (1947) in history at the Women's College, Osmania university.
She left again for Britain in March 1963 and started attending postgraduate classes at London university School of Oriental and African Studies.
It was a scholarly work based on original sources which were available at the Bodleian Library at Oxford which housed the Russell and Palmer papers.
Rushbrook Williams (CBE, FRSA), who was a fellow of All Souls College, Oxford wrote in the preface to the book that the study breaks new ground and enforces the revision of hitherto accepted judgments and is an unbiased and thorough investigation of the subject.
The preface for the book was written by Gordon Johnson (Director of the Cambridge University Centre for South Asian Studies and President of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (2015–18)) who wrote that not only does the study chronicle the live of the last Nizam but also the complexities of the relationship of the Indian States with the British raj which is an often ignored aspect of Indian history.
[6] The Sultan Bazaar library eventually wanted their rooms back and decided to make the college leave by locking the doors to the building.
She then went home and took her teenaged son with her and took him with her and went to meet the President and Secretary of the Sir Nizamat Jung Trust library.
It is now, under its Hindi name, Sarojini Naidu Vanitha Maha Vidyalaya, one of the largest women's colleges in Telangana state.
As the occasion demanded her charisma and powers of persuasion at convincing the great and the good were like magic, and they were like putty in her hands and it was extraordinary to watch".
[4] She and her husband, Mir Yaseen Ali Khan, initially taught the classes, but after a few months the Inner London Education Authority visited the school and awarded a grant.
Zubaida Yazdani was also an office bearer in various Urdu and History associations and published research in academic journals[6]