Sir Syed Ahmad Khan

Sir Syed Ahamd Khan, a great visionary and scholar of his time was born on 17th October, 1817 in Delhi. He hailed from a royal and distinguished family. He had enjoyed all the amenities and facilities available to him at home. Being a member of royal family, he was given the best education of the time. In results, he achieved good command over religious literature including religious philosophy, Arabic and Urdu literature as well. He studied Fiqh and Asuli-Fiqh, Quran, Urdu and Arabic literature from the best scholars. Sir Syed exerted all the pleasure in his adolescents. But the death of his father Syed Muhammed Khan in 1838 with whom he was deeply loved and affectionately associated changed the entire course of his life. He left his comfy life and started living more responsible life. Demise of his father was also considered as one of the turning points of his life where he got influenced al lot. As personality, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was universally accepted as a social reformer, thinker, philosopher, educationist, great visionary and so on. He wrote many books like Sunnat Dar Radd-e- Bidat, Tafsir-al Quran, Khutbat-e-Ahmadia, Kalmat-e-Haq, Asbab-e-Baghwat-e-Hind (Musa, 2019) besides these, he also wrote Ahkam Tu’am ahl-Kitab, An Account of The Loyal Mohammedans of Indian Part I, An Account of The Loyal Mohammedans of Indian Part II, An Account of The Loyal Mohammedans of Indian Part III, History of Bijnour Rebellion, Ital E Ghulami, Ik Nadan Khuda Parast, Khalqan Insan Ala Mafil Qura’n, Al Dua Wal Istajaba, (AMU, 2021) By his writings, he made his intentions clear that he was a social reformer and wanted to remove the impractical practices whether associated to rituals and traditions. His manifestation of ideas was based on reasoning and logics. He himself kept away from the impractical and illogical practices of the society and also wanted to keep away the people of the society. He also wrote Urdu essays like Rasoomaat and Bahes-o-Takrar wherein he manifested his ideas about the ill practices of the society particularly in Muslim community. In order to make the Muslims convinced to adapt modern education and to impart moral education, Sir Syed introduced the Tahzib-ul-Akhlaque in December, 1870 that was devoted to inculcation of good habits into people and removal of ill practices from the Muslim community. In connection to Shia and Sunni controversy, his work Tuhfa-i-Isna Ashriya of an Urdu translation was also devoted to combating the controversy. He also compiled Athar-ul-Sanadid in 1844, the most crucial and a non-religious work. Apart from these, contributions of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan covering different aspects as discussed in following manner:

Sir Syed posited that education is the only instrument by which all the ailments and diseases of the Muslim society can be cured. He wanted the Muslim people must follow the modern education system. As he considerably though out that only modern education leading scientific temperament can be beneficial to Muslims in the process of restoring the faded glory of the Muslim community. He also practically visualised that modern education would fetch government jobs to Muslims and would help them to become judges and civil servants. Sir Syed was a great religious practicing man and tried to disillusion the contradictions between the Islam and Sciences. Alam (2019) mentioned that “the purpose of education was not to refute religious findings but to validate it. In other words, the purpose of education was to prove that there was no contradiction between the work of God (world) and the word of God (Quran)” (p.114). In connection to educating the people, he established the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh in 1875 which later converted as Aligarh Muslim University in 1920. He also established school at Muradabad in 1859, at Ghazipur in 1863 and also set up Scientific Society at Ghazipur in 1864 for empowering the Muslims with scientific temperament by translating and making available the scientific knowledge in Urdu and Persian language to the people. In 1866, the Scientific Society published a journal named as Aligarh Institute Gazette. The main objective behind the publishing the journal was to arouse the sentiments of goodwill and friendship among the British for the Muslims (Musa, 2018). In his education manifesto, women were devoid of the modern education and also he never penned down on women education as he had the notion that women were in no need to avail modern education. Sir Syed had reflected clarity over education system of time and advocated two tier curriculums: curriculum for general education devoted to cater the needs of secular and spiritual aspects of Muslims; and Curriculum for special education to empower the Muslims by benefiting from the government run education system. According to him only those teaching methods should be used which had the ability to make the learners creative and constructive. He had good administrative and managerial skills too and had stressed upon the democratic, sympathetic and humanitarian style of administration for the education institutions. It was his opinion that vernacular medium of education should be adapted while English should be studied as the bridge to library language for the advanced scientific study.