Chagatai Khan (alternative spellings Chagata, Chugta, Chagta, Djagatai) was the second son of Genghis Khan. He ruled over the Central Asian Chagatai Khanate, part of the Mongol Empire, until his death in 1241.
He is also the person whom the Chagatai Turks generally and the Chughtais of South Asia claim descent.
Chagatai Turks
Chughtai
This is a Family name/clan in South Asia (India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the associated diaspora) that claims descent from Chagatai Khan, as thus status as a Chagatai Turk. The names of (especially) male members of the clan often carry the prefix Mirza and the suffix Beg, and are thus usually of the form Mirza <given name> Beg. The Mughal Emperors of India claimed to be of the same lineage. Babur consciously made a decision to drop the Mirza from his name. The names of minor, and some times even major, princes of the dynasty continued to carry the prefix and/or the suffix. The nomenclature is common today. For example, Mirza Aslam Beg was a recent Chief of Army Staff in Pakistan. Modern variations include the use of Beg or even Mirza as a family name. The family name Chughtai is also used. See also Bey.
She is also known for her translations into English of several works of prominent author, Ismat Chughtai, as well as other well-known women writers of Urdu fiction.
Naqvi’s own writing and her scholarship on Chughtai, I had never had the pleasure of attending one of her lectures.
Ismat Chughtai’s name should be familiar to anyone who has even a slight interest in Urdu literature and drama.
Chughtai was greatly helped in her aspiration to be a professional writer because her husband, Shahid Latif, was a successful script-writer who actively encouraged her (through him, she also tried her hand at script-writing, and was involved in some fourteen or fifteen films in the 1940s and 50s).
But Chughtai knew how to work her family members to ensure access to an education, through which she was able to get out of her parents house and eventually marry a man she herself chose.
This is the incident in Chughtai's life for which she is most famous, and it's interesting to see that at the time she took it rather lightly.
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