Timol Family History & Genealogy

History

We don't have any information on the history of the Timol name. Have information to share?

Name Origin

TIMOL is an indigenously Indian name rooted in Kathor and Kholwad, nr. Surat, Gujarat, India.

Surat

Arab traders landed at Ghogha (located just across the narrow Gulf of Khambhat from Surat) around the early 7th century and built a masjid there facing Jeruselum. Thus, Gujarat has the oldest mosque in India built between 624-626 AD by the Arabs who settled there.[1]
It was in Surat that Britain established its first foothold in India in 1612, when the East India Company received permission from the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, to establish a trading “factory”. Surat was then, as it is now, a prosperous city and centre of trade between India, Arabia and Iran. It remained Britain’s chief settlement on the western coast of India until 1687, whenBombay succeeded it. Prior to British settlement in Surat, the Dutch and the Portuguese were already there and fought wars with the British over this lucrative piece of land. The French also arrived later to settle and started to trade with this prosperous city.
The city of Surat was also called Bab-al-Makkah (Gateway to Makkah) because it was a famous port and during Mughal times pilgrims arrived and left for Mecca from there. Sir Monier Williams suggests that the old name of the city was “Surya”, which isSanskrit for sun. However, a Muslim ruler wished to change the name and converted it to “Surat”, which is a term that refers to a chapter in the Qur'an. Another story about the name of the town reveals that 'Surat' was derived from the Persian word "khubsurat", which means beautiful. Under Mughal rule, Surat enjoyed peace and rose to be one of the most prosperous cities in India. During the first half of the 17th century, the principal cargo of export from Surat was silk and cotton and diamonds.


Surti Muslims, who are commonly referred to as "Surtis", are Gujarati Muslims. Most of them adhere to Hanafi Sunni Islam. They are mainly of Indian origin, however it has been claimed that they may be at least in part originally descended from Arabs from Southern Arabia who migrated and settled in the districts of Surat in the state of Gujarat, India. With some who may have partial lineages from Muslim Central Asian/Afghan (Turko-Persian, Mongol, Pashtun) invaders, refugees, theologians and merchant settlers. Many members of the Surti Muslims community have migrated to Pakistan after independence and have settled in Karachi, Sindh.

Spellings & Pronunciations

We don't have any alternate spellings or pronunciation information on the Timol name. Have information to share?

Nationality & Ethnicity

TIMOL is an indigenously Indian name rooted in Kathor and Kholwad, nr. Surat, Gujarat, India.

Surat

Arab traders landed at Ghogha (located just across the narrow Gulf of Khambhat from Surat) around the early 7th century and built a masjid there facing Jeruselum. Thus, Gujarat has the oldest mosque in India built between 624-626 AD by the Arabs who settled there.[1]
It was in Surat that Britain established its first foothold in India in 1612, when the East India Company received permission from the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, to establish a trading “factory”. Surat was then, as it is now, a prosperous city and centre of trade between India, Arabia and Iran. It remained Britain’s chief settlement on the western coast of India until 1687, whenBombay succeeded it. Prior to British settlement in Surat, the Dutch and the Portuguese were already there and fought wars with the British over this lucrative piece of land. The French also arrived later to settle and started to trade with this prosperous city.
The city of Surat was also called Bab-al-Makkah (Gateway to Makkah) because it was a famous port and during Mughal times pilgrims arrived and left for Mecca from there. Sir Monier Williams suggests that the old name of the city was “Surya”, which isSanskrit for sun. However, a Muslim ruler wished to change the name and converted it to “Surat”, which is a term that refers to a chapter in the Qur'an. Another story about the name of the town reveals that 'Surat' was derived from the Persian word "khubsurat", which means beautiful. Under Mughal rule, Surat enjoyed peace and rose to be one of the most prosperous cities in India. During the first half of the 17th century, the principal cargo of export from Surat was silk and cotton and diamonds.


Surti Muslims, who are commonly referred to as "Surtis", are Gujarati Muslims. Most of them adhere to Hanafi Sunni Islam. They are mainly of Indian origin, however it has been claimed that they may be at least in part originally descended from Arabs from Southern Arabia who migrated and settled in the districts of Surat in the state of Gujarat, India. With some who may have partial lineages from Muslim Central Asian/Afghan (Turko-Persian, Mongol, Pashtun) invaders, refugees, theologians and merchant settlers. Many members of the Surti Muslims community have migrated to Pakistan after independence and have settled in Karachi, Sindh.

TIMOL is an indigenously Indian name rooted in Kathor and Kholwad, nr. Surat, Gujarat, India.

Surat

Arab traders landed at Ghogha (located just across the narrow Gulf of Khambhat from Surat) around the early 7th century and built a masjid there facing Jeruselum. Thus, Gujarat has the oldest mosque in India built between 624-626 AD by the Arabs who settled there.[1]
It was in Surat that Britain established its first foothold in India in 1612, when the East India Company received permission from the Mughal emperor, Jahangir, to establish a trading “factory”. Surat was then, as it is now, a prosperous city and centre of trade between India, Arabia and Iran. It remained Britain’s chief settlement on the western coast of India until 1687, whenBombay succeeded it. Prior to British settlement in Surat, the Dutch and the Portuguese were already there and fought wars with the British over this lucrative piece of land. The French also arrived later to settle and started to trade with this prosperous city.
The city of Surat was also called Bab-al-Makkah (Gateway to Makkah) because it was a famous port and during Mughal times pilgrims arrived and left for Mecca from there. Sir Monier Williams suggests that the old name of the city was “Surya”, which isSanskrit for sun. However, a Muslim ruler wished to change the name and converted it to “Surat”, which is a term that refers to a chapter in the Qur'an. Another story about the name of the town reveals that 'Surat' was derived from the Persian word "khubsurat", which means beautiful. Under Mughal rule, Surat enjoyed peace and rose to be one of the most prosperous cities in India. During the first half of the 17th century, the principal cargo of export from Surat was silk and cotton and diamonds.


Surti Muslims, who are commonly referred to as "Surtis", are Gujarati Muslims. Most of them adhere to Hanafi Sunni Islam. They are mainly of Indian origin, however it has been claimed that they may be at least in part originally descended from Arabs from Southern Arabia who migrated and settled in the districts of Surat in the state of Gujarat, India. With some who may have partial lineages from Muslim Central Asian/Afghan (Turko-Persian, Mongol, Pashtun) invaders, refugees, theologians and merchant settlers. Many members of the Surti Muslims community have migrated to Pakistan after independence and have settled in Karachi, Sindh.

Famous People named Timol

AHMED TIMOL:
WEBSITE LAUNCHED 41 YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH.

Ahmed Timol was a young schoolteacher in Roodepoort who opposed apartheid. He was arrested at a police roadblock on 22 October 1971, and died five days later. He was the 22nd political detainee to die in detention since 1960. Many more were to follow…
Forty-one years after his death, and 16 years after his mother’s appearance before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in search of closure, the circumstances that led to Ahmed Timol plunging from the 10th floor of John Vorster Square Police Station remain shrouded in mystery.
An inquest did not bother to explain the gruesome marks that covered Timol’s body, finding that he had committed suicide by jumping to his death. Timol, 29-years-old, would have been 70 today. Security police coined the term, “Indians can’t fly”, in reference to his death.
In order to commemorate Ahmed Timol’s life, to keep memories of his contribution to the anti-apartheid movement alive, and to provide a platform for the further exploration of the unsolved case, a dedicated website –www.ahmedtimol.co.za – goes public today.
The website, contains a complete record of just about all the information about Timol’s death that his family has been able to collect, from an exhaustive collection of newspaper articles from the 1970s to official records such as the inquest report.
The new Website is the brainchild of Timol’s nephew, Imtiaz Cajee, author of the book, Timol – Quest for Justice, published in 2005. Cajee is presently working on a second edition, to be titled, Timol – Quest for Truth.
Among key “missing” information in the case are the classified records of the former Security Branch. Was the roadblock set up specifically to entrap Timol? Were police informers involved in his arrest? Precisely what information were they trying to extract from Timol under torture? If he was pushed from the window, who pushed him? These are some of the questions that remain, as-yet, without answers.
“Retrieving records from the apartheid archives is a long and tedious process. Bureaucrats who have no understanding of our struggle history are responsible for making decisions to de-classify these records. If this information is not de-classified, I intend to escalate the matter to the Information Regulator”, Cajee said.
“South Africa’s approach to these archives differs markedly to those of some other countries that emerged from repression at more or less the same time. In Germany, for example, The Federal Commissioner for the Stasi Archives is an upper-level federal agency that preserves and protects the archives and investigates past crimes of the former Stasi, the secret police and intelligence organization of the communist German Democratic Republic (East Germany). In 2010, the agency had 1 687 employees. The German government has the political will to ensure that what happened in the past is not lost to history,” Cajee said.

At a function, Former President Nelson Mandela renamed the Azaadville Secondary School, in Krugersdorp, the Ahmed Timol Secondary School on 29 March 1999.
Timol was posthumously awarded the National Order of Luthuli, in 2009.
 
 
 

Early Timols

These are the earliest records we have of the Timol family.