Sir Syed Ahmed Khan

• Sir Syed was a great reformer.

  • His views about the possibility of the parting of ways of Hindus and Muslims became known as the ‘Two Nation Theory'.

    • In 1867, he was shocked over the Hindu demand of making Hindi as the official language of India.

    • Being a far-sighted leader, he opposed it as he could sense the Hindu aims about the future political scenario of India.

    • Urdu, written in Persian/Arabic script reflected the past Muslim rule over India.

    • Hindi, with the Devanagri script, on the other hand, represented the Hindu plans of ruling India.

  • He also opposed two more demands of INC in the 1880's:

    • competitive examinations for the civil services

    • the joint electorate for the elections of the legislative councils.

    • He knew that Muslims, being less educated and politically less organized, would not be able to compete with the Hindus in the examinations and elections.

    • He, therefore, advocated a system of separate electorates for Muslims and a fixed quota for Muslims in the competitive examinations.

  • Sir Syed initially wanted cooperation between Hindus and Muslims but his views soon changed when he realized the INC only claimed to represent all Indian communities whereas in reality it worked mainly for the Hindu interests.

    • In order to protect the political rights of the Muslims he founded the United Patriotic Alliance which was renamed as the Muhammadan Defence Alliance in 1893.

• Sir Syed also tried to create awareness among Muslims by convincing them to accept the British as the new rulers of India and so, it was wise to make friends with them.

  • He highlighted the similarities between Islam and Christianity by writing "Taba’yeen-al-Kalam".

  • In another book he proved that it was not un-lslamic to dine with the Christians.

  • He wrote a book in response to Sir William Muir's book "Life of Muhammad" that contained some objectionable remarks about the Holy Prophet.

  • While convincing Muslims Sir Syed worked to convince British about changing their stance regarding Muslims.

    • He wrote two pamphlets shortly after the War of Independence.

    • In "Essays on the Causes of Indian Revolt" he proved that Indians alone were not responsible for the Revolt but British too were to blame for their failure to understand the Indian mindset.

    • In "Loyal Muhammadans of India" he defended Muslims and proved that they were as loyal to the British as any other community in India.

    • He also explained the word "Nadarath" by proving it was an Anglicised form of the Arabic word "Nasara" (Christians) that was derived from the root word "Nasr" (Help) and thus proved that Muslims did not use the word in a derogatory way.

• Sir Syed's educational work was also very important.

  • He wanted to improve social condition of Muslims and to create political awareness among them.

    • For this Muslims needed to acquire modern British education.

    • He set up a series of institutes, issued magazines and wrote books.

    • In 1859 he opened a school in Muradabad, another school in Ghazipore in 1864 where he had founded the Ghazipore Scientific Society in 1863.

    • In it modern scientific writings of the West were translated into Persian and Urdu.

    • In 1866, he issued the Aligarh Institute Gazette from Aligarh to encourage Muslims to acquire modern education.

    • He visited England in 1869 and decided to set up an institute for Muslims after observing the Cambridge and Oxford Universities.

    • In 1875, he set up the MAO College, Aligarh where both western and local educations were imparted. This institute produced many prominent leaders like Liaqat Ali Khan and several workers of the Pakistan Movement.

  • In 1886, Muhammadan Educational Conference was established in order to launch a campaign for raising educational standard of Muslims.

    • It held regular meetings in several cities. Articles for the purpose were published in the journal, Tahzeeb-ul-Akhlaq.