Angel undone: interrogating Hyderabadi Muslim femininity, colonial modernity and sharafat in Zohra

Zeenuth Futehally’s understudied Zohra (1951) has generated some renewed interest due to its representation of Muslim womanhood amidst political and cultural change in South Asia. I examine how the fading purdah system and redefined notions of sharafat (respectability) create a crisis of femininity for the protagonist. The destabilisation of sharafat reveals the tensions underlying the figure of the ‘new woman’ in South Asia. This article examines how the inherently patriarchal nature of reform impacts Zohra’s articulation of political agency. I analyse the text as a larger social commentary through the lens of Indo-Muslim and Hyderabadi cultural memory.