Note 29 — Chapter III · Population—Costumes—Usages—Festivals

Mulla Firoz succeeded his father Mulla Kavas as Dastoor of the Kadmis (1802); when hardly eight years old he had accompanied Mulla Kavas to Persia and had learned Persian and Arabic. In 1786 he wrote in Persian a curious recital of his voyage, Derich Kherde Manjumi. In 1830 he published the Avijéh Din to refute the arguments of Dastoor Edalji Dorabji Sanjana. The governor of Bombay, Mr. Jonathan Duncan, engaged him to teach Persian, and to translate the Desatir. Mr. Duncan having died, Mulla Firoz continued his work in concert with Mr. William Erskine, and finished it in 1819. He died in 1830 (Parsee Prâkâsh, p. 229) and bequeathed his collection of books in Zend, Pehlvi, &c., to the Kadmi community; the library which contains them is situate in “Fort,” and bears his name. We owe to Mulla Firoz a poem on the conquest of India by the English, the George Namah, which was terminated and published in 1837 by his nephew and successor, Dastoor Rastamji Kaikobadji. On the death of the latter (1854) (Parsee Prâkâsh, p. 635), the Kadmis combined to found a madressa which they called Mulla Firoz (Parsee Prâkâsh, p. 647).