Remembering Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as a Proponent of Hindus and Muslims Being One Nation: His Religious Reform Is As Relevant As His Educational Reform
By
Dr. Mohammad Ghitreef, New Age Islam
22
September 2022
O Hindus
and Muslims! Are You A Resident Of Any Country Other Than India? Don't You Both
Live On The Same Land? Are You Not Buried In This Land, Or Are You Not Burned
On The Ghats Of This Land? If You Die On It and Live On It, Remember That Hindu
and Muslim Are Religious Words; Otherwise, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians Who
Live In the Same Country Are One Nation
Main
Points
1. Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) was a remarkable educationist, social and religious
reformer. Regrettably, while his educational achievements are applauded, his
religious reform is wholly forgotten.
2. Contrary to
what Pakistanis incorrectly believed, he was a protagonist of the one nation
doctrine, not the two-nation theory that created Pakistan.
1. 3- He
fervently advocated unity between Hindus and Muslims.
----
Sir
Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898)
----
Every year
on October 17th, Aligarh holds a grand celebration honouring Sir Syed Ahmad
Khan. This day serves as a reminder of both his excellent character and the
significant contributions he made to his society and country, as well as the
continued applicability of his ideas to contemporary times.
Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan was born on October 17 in Delhi and passed away in Aligarh on March
17, 1898. According to a narration, his forefathers immigrated to India from
Herat, Afghanistan, in the reign of Akbar, the great Mughal. His father, Meer
Mohammad Taqi, was an special consultant to Akbar Shah 11 in 1838, his father
died, and he inherited all the coveted titles. Mughal king Bahadur Shah Zafar
gave him another title of Arif Jung too.
Syed
Ahmad’s mother, Aziz ul Nisa Begum, gave special attention to educating him. On
the tutelage of Maulvi Hameeduddin, his formal education began, which comprised
of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu, along with traditional theological sciences such
as Tafsir, Hadees, Fiqh, etc. Though the traditional Ulama of Delhi taught Syed
Ahmad Khan, his education remained incomplete. However, he was very fond of
reading, so he gained a good command of these traditional sciences too. From
1840 when he was 23 years old, he began writing essays.
The times
in which Syed Ahmad lived were very turbulent and fraught with so many
difficulties for Muslims. The popular uprising of 1857, the mutiny for the
English, failed, and Muslims were on the receiving end, facing all the brunt of
the English outrage, being perceived as the chief instrument of that first freedom
movement. Then a statute was passed that put an end to feudalism and land
lording. That was a big blow to the already beleaguered Indian Muslim
community. Therefore, by all accounts, these were extremely difficult times for
Muslims.
Syed Ahmad moved in the direction of the
English in an effort to provide Muslims with a path for reconciliation while
keeping all of this in mind. In order to calm the anger and hatred of the
English people, he first published his renowned treatise on "The Causes of
Indian Revolt." His full attention was then directed at advancing his
educational movement among Indian Muslims. His educational theory was maybe an
imitation of the governmental policy verbatim, but it was not parochial and
limited like that of our clergy. His orbit of education was vast. Once, he
explained that as under:
"Education
aims to instil in man a capacity for creativity to confront the upcoming
problems and comprehend what is good and harmful for him. He can reflect on the
divine charismas, make moral improvements, manage his finances skilfully, and
consider afterlife-related issues. Therefore, the government claims it has no
plans to train all that. We merely keep in mind that it is not at all a good
idea to educate people so they can improve economic operations based on
geography, accounting, and geometry." (Hayate Javed, p: 85)
Once, he
expressed his ambition that with his educational efforts, he aspired to see:
“Every Muslim man holds philosophy and literature in one hand and
science and technology in the other. He is also crowned by the Kalima
Tayyeba (There is no God but on God).
The most
notable aspect of Sir Syed's life was his commitment to improving his community.
He had spent a good amount of his life working for the government. His family
had a distinguished reputation. Before the English government, his forefathers
were in high positions in Mughal courts. Because of his contributions, Syed
Ahmad gained the confidence of the English government, and if he so desired, he
might lead a comfortable royal life. However, having personally witnessed the
failure of resistance movements as well as the helplessness of Muslims
following the "failed mutiny," all of this inspired him to write the
book we already described. With this book, he tried to convince the English
that Muslims were not their enemy number one in India. Instead, they ought to
investigate the genuine reasons behind the uprising and eliminate the legitimate
grievances that motivated the populace to rebel against the British. He came to
the conclusion that "education" might be a useful and helpful tool to
serve society and address the challenges and problems it is facing. Then he
began his reform work on this line.
Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan was a Muslim social reformer also. In this regard, he is a beacon of
light. He is credited with having contrived a new method of Urdu prose writing.
His book Khutbate Ahmadiya in response to William Mure, the English
orientalist, is a brilliant example of his tremendous love for the prophet
(PBUH).
On the
occasion of writing this book, he was so excited that he did not hesitate to
sell his household assets back at home to meet the requirements for writing
this book and its English rendering. Moreover, he did great deeds in the form
of reviving the old Islamic historiographical tradition best exemplified by the
Asarus Sanadid. With forming Scientific Society, he tried his best to
invoke and inculcate a scientific temperament and love of knowledge in the
community.
In 1875 Sir
Syed founded Anglo-Mohammadan College, which transformed into Aligarh Muslim
University in 1921 after the death of Sir Syed. And thus the dream Sir Syed
dreamed to fulfil a community need comes true in this great seat of learning,
from where generations came out armed with knowledge and intellect and who
served their community and the country.
Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan established his educational policy based on a mix of religious and
secular values, because he was born and grew up in a traditional religious
milieu. Then by working with thinking, moral and spiritual imagination, he
discovered a new religious consciousness. Along with that, on an academic
plane, he was the first to think about the need for a new theology, which he
observed thus in one of his lectures:
“Our ancestors were at ease that sitting in their mosques and in the
inner wards of their monasteries, they could break hypothetical problems with
hypothetical arguments and hit at analogical reasons by the same arguments. But
in this age a new situation has arisen. Which is very different from the
philosophical reasoning of that period. Today the problems are being solved by
physical experiments and shown to us, and they are not to be refuted by analogical
reasoning.
(Collection of Sir Syed’s Lectures p.82)
Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan's One-Nation Theory: Although he undoubtedly advocated Muslim rights, Sir Syed was a fairly
impartial person at heart. He thought that other Indian communities had
advanced significantly while the Muslim community had fallen behind, so it
required particular attention. He opposed the Congress because he wanted
Muslims to focus solely on advancing education rather than fighting the British
authority. Then, as the nation's circumstances started to change, he also
drafted a plan for the Muslim political empowerment in his last days, but he
passed away soon after. However, on this basis, to call him the founder of Two
Nation Theory (as taught in Pakistan) who worked for discrimination among
Hindu-Muslims, is a great abuse and injustice to him. Contrary to that image he
was not only a supporter of Hindu-Muslim unity, but also a strong supporter of
one-nation theory. We can see his position in his own words:
“By God's
grace, two communities are currently residing in India, and they have come face
to face in each other's homes. One's wall casts a shadow that lands on
another's home. They are a partner in the climate and use the same rivers or
wells to get their water. We share each other's joys and sorrows in life and in
death. ……………. It has been observed and heard in old writings about ancient
history, and it is still observed that the term "nation" is used to
refer to a country's citizens. Afghanistan's diverse population is referred to
be one nation. Despite having a variety of ideologies and religions Europeans
are considered one nation. Although people from other countries also come and
settle in there, they are one nation. Therefore, since ancient times, the word
nation has been spoken about the country's inhabitants, even though they have
specific characteristics.
Hindus
And Muslims Are One Nation.
"O Hindus and Muslims! Are
you a resident of any country other than India? Don't you both live on the same
land? Are you not buried in this land, or are you not burned on the Ghats of
this land? If you die on it and live on it, remember that Hindu and Muslim are
religious words; otherwise, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians who live in the
same country are one nation. When all these groups are called one nation, they
should all be united in the national interest which is called the country of
all of them." ---
(An excerpt from Sir Syed’s lecture on 27
January 1848 AD)
Sir Syed
also advocated religious reform. It is safe to say that he boldly took some
first steps and inspired stoic Islamic thought in this regard. The popular view
of majority opinion has been transformed by Ulama into a kind of deity. They
have also been abusing the Ijma (consensus) tool. Sir Syed vehemently denounced
all of these things and continued on to rediscover the true religious
consciousness.
As part of
his efforts to bring about peace and interfaith harmony, he authored a thesis
on Taam Ahle Kitab (Dining with the People of the Book), which was
followed by a commentary on the Bible (Tabyenul Kalam). His ideas about
jihad and the abolition of slavery were likewise relevant and timely. These
initiatives of Sir Syed could be termed the first steps toward reconciliation
and interfaith understanding. Notwithstanding all that, If I suggest that Sir
Syed was not as well-prepared for the job as was required, I will not be far
from the truth. For instance, he was unable to access modern Western philosophy
directly. Hence he lacked a thorough understanding of it. Due to this deficiency,
he was overcome by the storm of reason and made severe errors in his attempts
to explain certain theological postulates, like miracles, the angel, and the
spirit.
Additionally,
he occasionally spoke carelessly and made mistakes in his commentary on Quran.
He visited England and was so moved by the civilizational values and culture of
the English people that he would not have been if he had studied the West
first-hand. Nevertheless, it was a remarkable achievement in itself that he
first realized the need for a fresh interpretation of the Qur'an and a fresh
exposition of Islamic doctrine. Because of this, Sir Syed was highly
appreciated by the philosopher-poet Iqbal, who claimed: "Most likely, Sir
Syed was the guy who had seen a positive glimpse of the approaching
times." His true grandeur resides in being the first Indian Muslim to
understand the necessities of the present in the context of Islam's real
spirit.
Sir Syed
was unfairly attacked by the chief ideologue of Islamism, Maulana Maududi, who
claimed that Sir Syed's writings were the source of all the aberrations and
deviational departures from mainstream Islam in the subcontinent. However,
Iqbal chose to place the blame for failing to understand Sir Syed's ideas and
see their significance in modern times on the clergy and their narrow-minded
followers.
-----
A regular columnist for New Age Islam, Dr.
Mohammad Ghitreef is a Research Associate with the Centre for Promotion of
Educational and Cultural Advancement of Muslims of India, AMU Aligarh.
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