Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: The Crusader of Muslim community’s Modernisation through Modern Education

 Dr. Babli Parveen  / Awaz e Khwateen

"Oh my dear children, you had reached a particular stage, and remember one thing that when I undertook the task, there was criticism all-around against me, and abuses upon me. Life had become so difficult for me that I aged before my age. I lost my hair, my eyesight, but not my vision. My vision never dimmed, my determination never failed, I built this institution for you, and I am sure you will carry the light of this institution far and wide; darkness will disappear from all around".

(Sir Syed Ahmed khan Statement from his famous speech at the foundation of MAO College)

The focus and major interest of Sir Syed Ahmad khan’s (1817-1898) life was modern education in its widest sense. He was a great Muslim scholar, a great visionary, statesman, educator, Jurist author and the founder of the Anglo- Mohammedan Oriental College at Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, and the principal motivating force behind the revival of Indian Islam in the late 19th century. He wanted to create a scientific temperament among the Muslims of India and to make the modern knowledge of Science available to them. He championed the cause of modern education at a time when all the Indians in general and Indian Muslims in particular considered it a sin to get modern education and that too through English language.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan emerged as the key leader of the Indian Muslim community at a critical juncture in Indian history – the aftermath of the War of Independence of 1857, the strengthening of British colonialism and the emergent crises for the Muslims of the subcontinent. He was a thoroughly modern Muslim in an age that was yet to become modern, responding to the changing material conditions and needs of Indian society.

“Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was the profit of education in India,”

(Mahatma Gandhi)

Syed’s family, though progressive, was highly regarded by the dying Mughal dynasty. His father, who received an allowance from the Mughal administration, became something of a religious recluse; his maternal grandfather had twice served as prime minister of the Mughal emperor of his time and had also held positions of trust under the East India Company. Syed’s brother established one of the first printing presses at Delhi and started one of the earliest newspapers in Urdu, the principal language of the Muslims of northern India.

While Europeans were making technological advances, with leaps and bounds from the 16th century onwards, Muslims were going downhill by abandoning sciences in the Muslim universities. Sir Syed recognized Muslims'

pathetic conditions and felt deeply pained to see the educational backwardness dominating the masses. He made a mission of his life to bring Muslims out of ignorance with very little support. He foresaw that modern education was the only tool to uplift educationally backward masses' condition to compete and have dignity and respect. During the 1857 revolt against the British, he witnessed British atrocities in which several of his family members died. He wrote a book about his experiences highlighting the causes for a humiliating defeat in colonialists' hands. His book was translated into English and sent to  the British Parliament and Queen Victoria members, and the East India Company got expelled from India.

The supreme interest of Syed’s life was, however, education—in its widest sense. He began by establishing schools, at Muradabad (1858) and Ghazipur (1863). A more ambitious undertaking was the foundation of the Scientific Society, which published translations of many educational texts and issued a bilingual journal—in Urdu and English.

These institutions were for the use of all citizens and were jointly operated by Hindus and Muslims. In the late 1860s there occurred developments that were to alter the course of his activities. In 1867 he was transferred to Benares, a city on the Ganges with great religious significance for the Hindus. Syed advised the Muslims against joining active politics and to concentrate instead on education. Later, when some Muslims joined the Indian National Congress, he came out strongly against that organization and its objectives, which included the establishment of parliamentary democracy in India. He argued that in a country where communal divisions were all-important and education and political organization were confined to a few classes, parliamentary democracy would work only inequitably. Muslims, generally, followed his advice and abstained from politics until several years later, when they had established their own political organization.

He went to England (1869-70) and visited Oxford and Cambridge universities to study the British educational system. He observed that British people participated in the hard work of industrial development of their country, which was lacking in the Indian community. On his return, he set up a committee for establishing teaching institutions and started an influential journal, Tahdhib al-Akhlaq "Social Reform," for the "uplift and reform the Muslim."

In January 1877 the Viceroy laid the foundation stone of the college. In spite of opposition to Syed’s projects, the college made rapid progress. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan founded Mohammaden Anglo-Oriental College (MAO College), which became the Aligarh Muslim University on 14 September 1920. His motto was

"A true Muslim is one who must have the Holy Quran in one hand and the book of science in the other." His supreme interest was the intellectual development of the people through modern education.In 1886 Syed organised the All-India Mohammadan Educational Conference, which met annually at different places to promote education and to provide the Muslims with a common platform. Syed advised the Muslims against joining active politics and to concentrate instead on education. Muslims generally followed his advice and abstained from politics. This advice is applicable even today. We have to concentrate our attention more on education for the uplift of the backward Muslim community. Many reports have clearly noted that the Muslims are educationally and economically more backward.

“The real greatness of the man ( Sir Syed Ahmed Khan ) 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”

 

Allama Iqbal

He wrote several volumes of a modernist commentary on the holy Quran, several books on Islam, and hundreds of articles to motivate Muslims to get modern education. He argued that understanding the Quran rested on a deep appreciation of reason and natural law and therefore did not preclude Muslim involvement in scientific methodology. He explained that "Religion is the word of God and our surroundings are the work of God. An explanation of the existence of the work of God is Science. Hence, no contradiction is possible between Science and Religion as the word of God cannot be in opposition to the work of God." These themes, mixed with a call for Muslim education, regularly appeared in his journals, the Mohammedan Social Reformer and the Aligarh Institute Gazette.

Sir Syed was a government civil servant and s scholar. The following are his important works: 1. ‘ASARUS SANADEED’’: It is an archaeological masterpiece providing a wealth of information on countless historical monuments in Delhi from the eight hundred long Muslim rule. This book was published in 1847. 2) ‘‘ASBAB-E-BAGHAWAT-E-HIND’’- (The causes of Indian Revolt) This book was published in 1859 after the 1857 revolt after witnessing the atrocities committed by the British on the inhabitants of Delhi. He saw an uncle, a cousin and an aunt dying before his eyes. He saved his mother but she died due to privations she had experienced. Muslims were the main targets of the government’s wrath. 3) THE ALIGARH INSTITUTE GAZETTE - It was an organ of the Scientific Society started in 1866. It made the people think and use their wisdom. 4) ‘’TEHZIB-UL-AKHLAQ’’ – It succeeded in making people realise the value of modern knowledge. It also gave new directions to Muslim social and political thoughts.

Apart from establishing institutions with a distinctly liberal spirit Sir Syed Ahmad Khan also did some scholarly legal work in the field of civil rights for women. The Civil Rights Act of 1866 (empowerment of women) could not have been passed without the legal scholarly help that Sir Syed Ahmad extended to the bill. If we take time out to delve into the early life of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan we get to know that he imbibed this liberal world view from a long tradition of scholarship running into his family, in fact he learnt Quran from a female tutor something which was very rare in the early nineteenth century.

The fact that a girl’s school was established in Aligarh just a decade after his death lays testimony to the timelessness of his ideas. The founders of the girls’ school cited Sir Syed Ahmad as the inspiration behind it and hence gave strength and endurance to his views towards women’s education throughout the country. It won’t be an exaggeration to state that the Aligarh Muslim University is a great symbol of Sir Syed Ahmad’s vision and efforts towards the education of women in India.

Throughout his life Syed Ahmed Khan showed concern with how Indian Muslims could adapt to intellectual and political change accompanying Western rule. His first mission became reinterpretation of Muslim ideology so as to reconcile tradition with Western education and science. He argued in several books on Islam that the holy Quran rested on a deep appreciation of reason and natural law and therefore did not preclude Muslim involvement in scientific methodology.

(The author is Historian and Assistant Professor at DU)