Syed Mīr Nisār ʿAlī (; 27 January 1782 – 19 November 1831), better known as Titumir (), was a Bengali freedom fighter, who developed a strand of Muslim nationalism coupled with agrarian and political consciousness. He is famed for having built a large bamboo fort to resist the British, which passed onto Bengali folk legend.In 2004, Titumir was ranked number 11 in BBC's poll of the Greatest Bengali of all time. Early life Titumir was born Syed Mīr Nisār ʿAlī on 27 January 1782 (14 Magh 1182), in the village of Chandpur (or Haidarpur, per some sources) to Syed Mir Hasan Ali and Abidah Ruqayyah Khatun. The family claimed to be of Arab ancestry, tracing their descent from Caliph Ali. One Syed Shahadat Ali had arrived in Bengal to preach Islam and his son, Syed Abdullah became appointed as the Chief Qadi of Jafarpur by the emperor of Delhi. Titumir was educated in a local madrassa where he became a hafiz of the Qur'an by the age of twenty, beside being accomplished in Bengali, Arabic, and Persian. He married the daughter of Muhammad Rahimullah Siddiqi, and moved to Calcutta with his wife and teacher Niʿmatullah. Here, he gained patronage under the businessmen Jamaluddin Effendi and Mirza Ghulam Anbiya, furthering his Islamic studies with Shaykh Kamal Bakerganji and Shaykh Zaki Bihari. He was also a good wrestler and gymnast, leading to an employment-stint as the bodyguard of a local zamindar. However, Titumir was jailed on an occasion and upon release, in 1822, left his job to embark upon Hajj alongside patron Mirza Ghulam Anbiya. Religio-political activism Islamic resurgence In Mecca, Titu mir was influenced by Syed Ahmad Barelvi, a sufi preacher, who advocated for Jihad to purge all non-Islamic corruptions from sociopolitical life and enforce Sharia. Upon return from Mecca, he began to mobilize the Muslim peasantry by preaching against deviations from Quran —vernacular practices such as the veneration of pirs and constructiion of dargahs, charging of interest on loans etc. were all frowned upon. The Zamindars—who were mostly, Hindu—were held to be in cahoots with the Britishers to oppress their subjects. Titumir's diktats penetrated into the social life, as well: men were to have beards with trimmed moustaches and women adorn burqas; those who did not abide by his diktats were to be boycotted. The lowest classes of the Muslim society responded favourably; however his emphasis on Islamic fundamentalism meant