OPINION

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan- Man of many distinctions

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By: Bashir Ahmad Dar

The Second half of the 19th century is of immense importance in Indian history so far as its political, social, educational, economic and cultural aspects are concerned. In the educational sphere, western education got expansion though it had been introduced before the 1850’s. One of the pioneers of modern education was Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. He was a forward-looking educationist, an intellectual of high standard, an enlightened and outstanding literary genius, an erudite theologian, a versatile writer and a fearless journalist besides being a pragmatic social reformer, an apostle of secularism and Hindu-Muslim unity. He is therefore rightly considered as one of the very distinguished architects of modern India. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was a man of many distinctions

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was born on October 17, 1817, in Delhi and started his career as a civil servant.  The 1857 revolt proved as one of the turning points in Syed Ahmed’s life. It made him ponder over the issue of how the Indians in general and the Muslims in particular were persecuted after the Revolt. He could clearly foresee the imperative need for the Muslims to acquire proficiency in the English language and modern sciences, if the community were to maintain its social and political influence, particularly in Northern India.

In 1858, a year after the British had crushed the mutiny when Sir Syed was busy picking up the pieces with the mission for educational empowerment of the community, a civil servant and orientalist, Sir William Muir (1819-1905), published a lengthy contemptible, despicable book on the Prophet of Islam titled “A life of Mahomet”(SAW) and History of Islam to the Era of Hegira”. Sir Syed was deeply hurt by Muir’s representation of Islam and the Prophet. But Sir Syed also showed the world how to disagree with an opponent in a civilised manner. To repudiate Muir’s biased and falsified writings, Sir Syed  in 1870 visited England and decided to prepare a rejoinder by cross-checking the sources used by William Muir. He consulted the books and references cited by Muir that were available at the British Museum and other libraries. Penning down something when one is furious over reading something, still, Sir Syed held his nerves . It took more than eight years to complete the erudite rebuttal and got it translated into English in 1870 under the title “Life of Muhammad” SAW. It is said that Sir Syed had to part off with his belongings for the journey and publication of this book. Sir Syed’s work debunked the misconception and misunderstandings created by Muir’s book.

As a distinguished Islamic scholar, a journalist, an educationalist, an author Sir Syed has left behind a vast canon of books and magazine and newspaper articles. He was a historian and archaeologist who could write with verve on the historical monuments of Delhi. In fact with his famous work “Asar-us-Sanadid”, which was later translated into French, he heralded the tradition of Indian archaeology. He also collected rare artefacts, ancient idols of Hindu gods and goddesses and sculptures, and preserved them at a time when museums did not exist. Asbaab-e-Baghawat-e-Hind, Khutbaat-e-Ahmadia, Tafseer-ul-Quran, and Tareekh-e-Sarkashi-i-Bijnaur.Asbaab-e-Baghawat-e-Hind describes the conditions that led to 1857. With this book, he also tried to dispel the misunderstanding of the British towards the entire issue that caused this terrible catastrophe. His analysis of the causes of the revolt of 1857, a daring act in the context of its time, is still quoted by historians as one of the best studies of the event. In Khutbaat-e-Ahmadia, he wrote a strong and logical reply to the Christian author (William Muir”who had presented a distorted picture of Islam.   He But despite this he was an Islamic thinker who was greatly interested in interfaith understanding. His was the time of intense missionary activity and Hindu reform movements. Sir Syed encouraged a process of dialogue and discussion on religious matters.

His “The Mohamedan Commentary on the Holy Bible” was undertaken to clear misunderstandings between the Christians and the Muslims.

His Tafseer-ul-Quran, however, proved to be a much contested commentary on the holy Quran where he examined religious matters in rationalist terms and denied the role of miracles in the matters of faith. It was in this sphere where he incurred criticism and sometimes condemnation from the Muslims .Seeing through the prism of rationality and scientific temper, he contended that if we believe in the divinity of our religion, we must not be afraid of going through the filter of rationality. Setting out a set of principles of interpretation of the Quran, he developed his basic paradigm of tafseer (Quranic interpretation) on the notion of congruence between the ‘Work of God’ and ‘Word of God’. He stated that the laws of nature are the Work of Allah (God) and since the Quran was a book from Allah (God), it is the Word of Allah (God). As the Word and Work are from the same source, therefore, if we find any conflict between the two, either the word is not from God or we are unable to interpret the word correctly. His other writings of great interest include his miscellaneous writings and travelogues.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan is regarded as the visionary who carved a space for rationalist thought, gave a new direction to education, and laid the parameters of modernist Urdu prose.  He did not only evolve a new philosophy and pedagogy for the spread of education and write remarkable discursive prose, but also affected a change in the attitude of people, especially of the Muslim community, towards social, cultural, and national identity. He was an iconoclast who promoted a scientific view of life and found space for pure rationalism as opposed to romantic sentimentality. As he also influenced poets and writers, he came to be acknowledged and valued as one of the major reformers of modern India.

He was one of those early pioneers who recognized the critical role of education in the empowerment of the poor and backward Muslim community. In more than one way, Sir Syed was one of the greatest social reformers and a great national builder of modern India. He embarked upon the plan to educate the Muslims and for this purpose established various schools. He formed the Scientific Society in 1863 to infuse the scientific temperament into the Muslims and to make the Western knowledge available to Indians in their own language.

In March 1866 he started the Aligarh Institute Gazette, an organ of the Scientific Society and succeeded in agitating the minds in the traditional Muslim society. Notwithstanding the criticism and opposition from the traditional Muslim leaders, Sir Syed responded by bringing out another journal, Tehzibul Akhlaq which was rightly named in English as ‘Mohammedan Social Reformer.’

The biggest achievement of Sir Syed was the Madarsatul Uloom founded on 24 May 1875, in Aligarh and patterned the MAO College after Oxford and Cambridge universities that he went on a trip to London. His objective was to build a college in line with the British education system but without compromising its Islamic values.

He desired this College to act as a bridge between the old and the new, the East and the West. While he fully appreciated the need and urgency of imparting instruction based on Western learning, he was not oblivious to the value of oriental learning and wanted to preserve and transmit to posterity the rich legacy of the past. To quote the great philosopher and writer Dr. Sir Mohammad Iqbal, “The real greatness of Sir Syed consists in the fact that he was the first Indian Muslim who felt the need of a fresh orientation of Islam and worked for it — his sensitive nature was the first to react to modern age”.

Sir Syed aimed not merely establishing a college at Aligarh but at spreading a network of Muslim managed educational institutions throughout the length and breadth of the country. With this in view, he established All India Muslim Educational Conference that aimed to revive the spirit of Muslims at the all India level. The initiative to set up a system of Western-style scientific education in British India for the Muslim population and to usher reform among the Muslim community came to be called as the Aligarh Movement. To acquire scientific knowledge, rational thinking and modern outlook was at the heart of Sir Syed’s movement also called the Aligarh Movement. The Movement was instrumental in motivating Muslims to open a number of educational institutions. It turned out to be the first of its kind of such Muslim NGO in India, which awakened the Muslims from their deep slumber and instilled social and political sensibility into them. This Muslim renaissance movement has profound implications for the culture, society, politics, and religion of the Indian subcontinent.  Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College was upgraded and converted into Aligarh Muslim University in 1920.

Sir Syed was successful in contributing many essential elements to the development of the modern society of the subcontinent. During Sir Syed’s own lifetime, ‘The Englishman’, a renowned British magazine of the 19th century remarked in a commentary on November 17, 1885: ‘Sir Syed’s life “strikingly illustrated one of the best phases of modern history”. He died on March 27, 1898, and lies buried next to the main mosque at AMU.

Tailpiece : Sir Syed Ahmad Khan requested Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib to write a preface for his new edition of Abu’l-Fazl’s Ai’n-e Akbari (account of Akbar , s reign the Mughal Emperor ‘s reign, volumes published between 1855-56  ), Ghalib responded with a Persian poem castigating the very idea.It may be of interest to note that Syed Ahmad was nearing his forties and Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib – that giant of Urdu and Persian poetry as well as prose who needs no introduction – was nearing his sixties. Syed Ahmad’s request to write the preface of the just finished new edition of Abi’l-Fazl’s Ai’n-e Akbari was rejected by Ghalib, but rejection with Ghalib was never a simple affair.

He responded to Syed Ahmad’s request with this Persian Poem that is available to English readers thanks to the efforts of writer, poet, critic and theorist Shamsur Rahman Faruqi. Through this poem, Ghalib reprimands Syed Ahmad, “made up entirely of wisdom and splendour”, for wasting his considerable talents by delving into the past and the work of those who are long gone. Instead he suggested him look to the “Sahibs of England” and the “laws and rules” and “science and skills” they have produced, overtaking the “efforts of the forebears (ancestors)”. Ghalib counselled Sir Syed that “Worshipping the dead is not an auspicious thing”.

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