Sir Syed Ahmad Khan Had the Wisdom to Know That Unless Islam Fused Into the Indian Culture, It Would Remain a Stranger in the Land
By Najmul Hoda
17 October
2020
Sir Syed
Ahmad Khan has, arguably, been the only true thinker among the Indian Muslims
in a very long time. Others have either been Maulvis or poets, or poet-Maulvis,
or Maulvi-poets. He was a prosaic pragmatist who made practical prescriptions
for dragging his qaum out of the despondency, in which they had been wallowing.
He had the insight to know what had gone wrong, and pragmatism to suggest what
was needed to be done. Even as a Biryani-Sherwani festival is celebrated every
year on 17 October to mark his birth anniversary, Syed Ahmad Khan’s
religio-philosophical ideas, social thoughts, political attitude and
educational endeavours remain buried under tonnes of prejudices of his
professed devotees.
File
photo of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan | Commons
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If he were
alive today, notwithstanding the evolution he would have undergone in the
intervening period, the concerns that prematurely greyed his hairs would
continue to give him sleepless nights because his Qaum (community) remains in
the same state as it once was — enamoured of the past, resentful of the
present, and fearful of the future. Therefore, in order to assay Syed Ahmad
Khan’s relevance, it would be pertinent to speculate what he would do today, if
he were amongst us.
Hindutva, From Sir Syed’s Prism
Islam may
not be a political religion, but Muslims have a religious passion for politics.
So, let’s surmise his response to Hindutva. Would he go on a path of
confrontation or conciliation?
Probably,
he would do now what he did then to placate the British hostility post 1857,
the first war of Independence. His pragmatic wisdom made him urge Muslims into
political celibacy, for rubbing the British on the wrong side again would have
brought untold misery, far in excess of what had just befallen them. Today,
depoliticisation would be an ineluctable imperative for sailing through the
tide of Hindutva.
L to
R: Nawab Mohsinul Mulk, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Justice Syed Mahmood (Pic Credits:
Internet)
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Muslims
played the role of enthusiastic volunteer mercenaries for some political
parties when the Hindu society was caught in the throes of caste politics. The
matter pertained to their internal readjustment of power, but the Muslims got
identified as a motivated vote bank. This led to a counter consolidation in
which, ironically, those very segments that had risen to power on the back of
the Muslim vote played a major role.
In the face
of this subaltern ferocity, Sir Syed would advise them political quietude. He
would be frightened of the suicidal imprudence of vituperative
religio-political rhetoric, which has been the hallmark of the Muslim public
discourse; and considering how perceptive he was, he would look askance at
their expedient constitutionalism, best illustrated in the Preamble reading
chorus. He would caution Muslims against going on a self-defeating offensive on
such embarrassing issues as Shah Bano and Triple Talaq. Sir Syed had chafed
under the hostility of the orthodoxy. He had to capitulate before them, and
abandon the agenda of social reform, in order to neutralise their opposition to
his college. He would regret it, and try to seize the initiative from their
hands. Albeit late, the Muslims wouldn’t be denied their own Raja Ram Mohan
Roy.
Also Read: Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: Man with a
Noble Mission
Sir Syed And Sachar Committee Report
The 2006
Sachar Committee report should have sent shock waves across the Muslim
community, since it showed that they had slid lower than the lowest in some
indices. Instead, these findings were welcomed with much malicious glee,
insofar as it gave them a stick to beat the State with, for discriminating
against them. This report became the canon of victimology.
Having
preached political quietude to stay afloat in the rough waters of the Rightist
rage, Sir Syed would look inwards, and be shocked at the derelict state of the
community. He wouldn’t use these data for recriminatory rejoicing. He didn’t
when in 1871, William Hunter’s book — The Indian Musalmans: Are They Bound in
Conscience to Rebel Against the Queen? — was published. Sir Syed published an
extensive review of it, expostulating against the aspersion inherent in the
subtitle. Today, he might bring out a revised edition of The Loyal Mohammadans
of India.
One of the
findings in Hunter’s book was that the Muslims had begun to lag in modern
education and state employment in Bengal. Sir Syed extrapolated this data to
the rest of the country, and launched an educational mission that fructified in
Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College, and Muhammadan Educational Conference.
He didn’t go on a madrasa-building spree while fulminating against the
government for not building colleges for the Muslims. Today, he would revive
the Muhammadan Educational Conference as the National Educational Conference,
and launch a countrywide movement for education for everyone, not for the
Muslims alone. Since he preferred communitarian effort in education, he
wouldn’t look for the government aid to run these institutions.
Also
Read: The Joy of Hope:
Hope, an Integral Part of Our Islamic Faith, Must Stay With Us from Cradle to
Grave
MAO College
If Sir Syed
were to establish an educational institution today (and he wouldn’t be content
with just one), the same impulse that drove him in 1877 to decide on the name
Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, would make him name it Indo-Islamic National
University, to reflect Islam’s fusion into the Indian nationhood. Having learnt
from experience, he wouldn’t keep its scope confined to creating job
eligibility for the scions of the decadent Muslim aristocracy. Neither would he
cede any grounds to the orthodoxy. It would have become clear to him that
modern education had to be imbibed in the spirit of humanism and enlightenment.
Bereft of this, it would be like the razor in a monkey’s hands. The community
and the country have suffered many cuts. Promotion of liberal education for
salvaging the interests of a degenerate gentry was bound to entrench their
sense of entitlement and put them on the path of selfish and separatist
politics.
Also
Read: Travelogue: A
Musafir (Traveller) To London
Islam Today
Sir Syed
reacted to the British conquest as a Muslim aristocrat, and not as an Indian.
It betrays the myopia of a decadent nobility, which brimmed with the hubris of
having ruled the country for many centuries. If there was no national
consciousness yet, the ruling class had defaulted in their duty of being the
vanguard of ideas.
Sir Syed
told his class-community that in order to remain relevant, they would have to
change their mode of thought. Since religion was central to their thought, and
since it was making them lag, they had to develop a new understanding of
religion that harmonised the word of God with the work of God in such a way that
made religion compatible with science. He wrote an exegesis of the Quran to
bring about this reconciliation. In this endeavour he was as much influenced by
the West as by the lost tradition of Islamic rationalists.
If he were
to write the same book today, it’s interesting to speculate whether he would
tap into the indigenous rationalist philosophy of Charvaka, also known as
Lokayata. Probably, he would. After all, the same pursuit of reconciliation
made him write a commentary on the Bible. He stressed that since both the Quran
and the Bible were of the same provenance, there was little scriptural pretext
for religious animus between the followers of the two. Would he have,
similarly, undertaken to write an exposition of the Vedas and Upanishads to highlight
the essential unity of all religions? If he could make a new recension of
Ain-i-Akbari, he would definitely embrace Akbar’s Sulh-i-Kul (universal peace)
principle as well.
Sir Syed
had the wisdom to know that unless Islam fused into the Indian culture, it
would remain a stranger in the land, with none too good implications for its
followers. He would have been embarrassed that in a thousand years, except for
Al-Biruni’s Kitab-ul Hind and Dara Shukoh’s Majma-ul-Bahrain, Muslims had made
no serious effort to understand India. What they didn’t do as rulers, they must now as citizens.
Original Headline: Hindutva to Sachar report —
What Syed Ahmad Khan would have done today
Source: The Print
URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-personalities/sir-syed-ahmad-khan-had/d/123182
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