Introduction

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was the greatest Muslim reformer and political leader of the 19th Century. After receiving education in Persian and Arabic he took up the Government service.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan came forward to guide the destinies of his co-religionists and help them steer through stormy seas of ignorance and superstition to safe shores of confidence and fresh aspirations. Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, one of the pioneers of the freedom movement of the Indo-Pakistan, was the torch-bearer in imparting modern scientific education to the down-trodden and ill-educated Muslims of the sub-continent to enable them to stand up to the political and socio-economic needs of the time. Sir Syed Ahmad Khan stands out as an important landmark in the development of Muslim thought in the South Asian sub-continent. Sir Syed was the founder of the Aligarh Movement which was the most important movement after the struggle of 1857. He opposed the campaign started by Hindus to replace Urdu by Hindi. The objective of this campaign was to ruin the Muslim civilization and culture by destroying Urdu.

Detail

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was born in the year 1817 at Delhi in a renowned family of scholars and statesmen. He was educated like all Muslims of his day under the traditional system of education.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan started his career by entering into government service as a Sarishadar at Delhi in 1836. After the War of Independence of 1857, he wrote his famous thesis entitled "Loyal Mohammadans of India". He wrote his Risala-dar-Asbab-i-Bhagawati-i-Hind and Ahkam-i-Ta’am-i-Ahl-i-Kitab and other pamphlets to further his educational ideas. In 1864, he established a School at Ghazipur where the English language along with eastern languages was also taught to Muslims. He founded a Scientific Society. Here he started the periodical which was first called Scientific Society Papers and later, the Aligarh Institute Gazette.

He visited England in 1869 and, on his return, started his famous movement for the establishment of the Muslim University. It started the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1898 and gradually expanded it to be raised to the status of a University in 1920. He started a monthly journal called the Tehzib-al-akhlaq. It’s object was to bring home to the Muslims the need for liberalizing their religious thought and turning to western education in order to regain their former prosperity. The Translation Society established at Ghazipur in 1864, whose objective was to translate books from European languages into Urdu, was being managed by Syed Ahmad’s lifelong friend, Raja Jai Kishan Das. Similarly, the British Indian Association established in 1866 with the object of keeping in touch with the members of the House of Commons was composed of both Hindus and Muslims.