Person · reformer & educationist
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
Also known as Syed Ahmad Khan, Sir Syed, Sayyid Ahmad Khan
Founder of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh in 1875, which became Aligarh Muslim University. He argued that Indian Muslims had to take up English and modern science without abandoning Islam, and wrote a commentary on the Qur'an attempting to reconcile it with natural law.
- Date
- 1817 – 1898
- Function
- Social reform & movement
- Tradition
- Aligarh movement; Tahzib al-Akhlaq
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
His Asbāb-e-Baghāwat-e-Hind, written immediately after 1857, told the British that the revolt was their own fault for excluding Indians from government, and he circulated it at his own risk. Deoband was founded nine years before Aligarh and argued the opposite case.
Connections (3)
- Monastic foundationAligarh
Sir Syed founded the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh in 1875 after touring Cambridge and Oxford, on the argument that Indian Muslims who refused English and modern science would be governed by people who had them. He financed it by subscription, was attacked by the ulama for it, and produced within two generations most of the political leadership of Muslim India.
- CampaignDarul Uloom Deoband
Deoband in 1866 and Aligarh in 1875 are two answers to the same defeat, and they were built against each other. Deoband refused state money, refused English and refused modern science, and trained ulama; Aligarh took all three and trained administrators. Both were subscription-funded, both were founded by men of the same class, and South Asian Muslim politics has run between them ever since.
- TransmissionNawal Kishore Press
Hindi and Urdu separated into two languages with two scripts and two literary canons in the decades Nawal Kishore's press was operating, and commercial printing is one of the instruments that made the separation stick, because a press has to choose a script for every title. Sir Syed's Aligarh argued for Urdu as the language of Muslim modernity in exactly those years, and the Hindi movement argued the other side just as hard.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Syed Ahmad Khan”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.
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