Unit 3

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Aligarh

Movement
 Introduction
• Sir Syed Ahmed khan was a great Muslim
Scholar and Reformer.
• Sir Syed Ahmed Awakened the Muslims from
their Slumber to put up a struggle for the
revival of their past position of eminence.
 Sir Syed Ahmad Khan
• Name Syed Ahmed Taqvi
• Born 17 Oct 1817 Delhi
• Father Mir Muttaqi
• Mother Aziz-un-Nisaa
• Maternal Grand Father Khawaja Farid-ud-din
• Khawaja Farid-ud-din had twice served as Prime
Minister of Mogul Emperor and held trustworthy
position under the East India Company.
 Education
• He got his primary education from his maternal
grandfather, which include, Study of Holy Quran,
Arabic and Persian Literature.
• Later he also acquired excellence in history,
mathematics and medicine. But he didn’t complete
the medicine course.
• He had also been introduced to some of India’s most
able writers and had developed a love for literature.
• Financial difficulties put an end to Sir Syed's formal
education.
 Employment
• In 1840 he joined East India company as
Record Keeper (Naib Munshi), he rose to the
position of chief Assessment Official ( Chief
Judge in some references).
• May 10, 1857, Sir Syed was serving as the
chief Assessment officer at the court in Bijnor,
he saved the lives of British Women and
Children at risk of his life.
 Writings

• Asar-us-Sanadid
• Risala Asbab-e-Baghawat-e-Hind
• Indian Musalmans
• Essay on the life of Muhammad (PBUH)
 Educational Services
• Sir Syed played a vital role in the educational
uplift of the Muslims in India. He did the
following things to improve the educational
standards:
• set up a journal, Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq, which
contained articles of influential Muslims who
agreed with Sir Syed's approach towards
education.
 Educational Services
• Educational Institutes:
• i. Opened school in murdabad in 1859
• ii. founded scientific society in Ghazipore in 1863.
• iii.Victoria School Ghazipur 1864.
• iv.Aligarh Institues Gazette.
• v.Mao High School in 1875 which was later became MAO
college.
• vi.Aligarh Muslim University(AMU) in 1920.
• vii.Organized the Mohammedan Educational Conference.
 Political Services
• Sir Syed also increased the political awareness of
Muslims in the Sub-continent. At first he believed
in Hindu-Muslim unity but later resolved to the
two-nation theory. In 1885 the Indian National
Congress was set up. It claimed to be the body of
every Indian regardless of religion. However it
later proved to be functioning only for the
Hindus and tried to eradicate the Muslims. The
Congress made three demands:
CONT
• political representation according the population. This
obviously meant Hindu domination as they were a
dominant majority in India and Sir Syed opposed it.
• Appointment in government should be by competitive
examinations. Sir Syed opposed this because he knew that
the educational standards of the Hindus was much better
than the Muslims.\
• The next official language should be Hindi replacing Urdu.
Urdu had a special place in the Muslim hearts and Sir Syed
opposed this. This demand was accepted by the British.
 Political Services
• I.Advice To Students:
• Sir Syed’s advice to Muslims in the political
field is also important. He believed that under
the European system or democratic
government the Muslims of India would
always be at the mercy of Hindu majority.
• He suggested separate electorate for Muslims.
He advised the Muslims not to join Congress.
• II.Urdu-Hindi Controversy:
• In 1867, Hindus demanded that Hindi should
be made an official language of India in place
of Urdu. They started an agitation. The Hindus
were against Urdu because it was the
language o the Muslims. Muslims opposed
this and supported Urdu as it was the sign and
united the Muslims of the India under one
language. Due to this reason Sir Syed started
“Two Nation Theory”
 Two Nation theory
• Sir Syed Ahmed Khan played a vital role in
improving the Muslim status. He worked
tirelessly to restore relations between the
Muslims and the British. He brought the
Muslim revival through the Aligarh movement
and showed the importance of education.
CONT
• Sir Syed convinced that the Hindus would
never be friend with the Muslims. He brought
an idea about the Two-nation theory and is
hence known as "The Father of The Pakistan
Movement“.
 Journey to England
• In 1868, he went England and visited
educational institutions. The University of
Cambridge impressed him the most.
• This visit provided him an opportunity to think
over and give a final shape to his plan to
establish institutions in India.
 Honors
•  Worked Member of Governor General’s
• Legislative Council (1878-1883)
•  Was appointed as Member of Public Service
• Commission in 1887.
•  The Government of that time centered the Title of
• SIR on him.
•  Was made a Knight Commander of the Star of
• India.
Aligarh Movement
• Sir Syed was interested in Muslims. He wanted
to improve relations with British and the
positions of Muslims.
• The Aligarh Movement was founded by Sir
Syed Ahmed Khan, the greatest Muslim
educationist of the 19th Century.
 CONT
• The Services which Sir Syed Ahmed khan
rendered for the Muslims are known as the
Aligarh Movement in the history of Muslims of
India.
 Aims of Alligarh Movement
• The central aims of the Aligarh Movement
were to:
• Improve relations between the British and
Muslims communities by removing British
doubts about Muslim loyalty and Muslim
doubts about the British intentions.
CONT
• Aligarh movement was aimed at apprising the
British that Muslims are not only responsible
for the War and therefore undue wrath should
not be inflicted to them.
• To persuade the Muslims to get modern
education
 Objectives

• I. To create an atmosphere of Mutual

understanding between the British Government
and Muslims.
• II. To persuade Muslims to learn English
Education.
• III. To persuade Muslims to abstain from politics
of agitation.
• IV. To produce an intellectual class from amongst
the Muslim Community.
CONT
• The British Government Excluded the Muslims
from reasonable government Jobs.
• In Government Office of Calcutta a
Muhammadan (Muslim) could hope only for
any post above the rank of a porter,
messenger and Ink filler-Pots.
 Causes of Aligarh Movement
• After the War of independence of 1857 the British
did not trust on Muslims, according to them British
thought Muslims were only cause of War of
Independence. As a result they adopted policy of
oppression and repression towards Muslims.
• Suffering of Muslims Doubled when Muslims
refused to send their Children to Missionary/
European and Government Schools because they
hated English Language.
 Works ( Aligarh Movement)

• Farsi Maddarsa Muradabad (1859)

• Victoria School Ghazipur (1864)
• Establishment of Scientific Society
• Aligarh Institute Gazzatte
• Tehzib-ul-Ikhlaq (Magazine)
• {MAO} Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College, Aligarh (8th
January 1877)
• Muhammadan Educational Conference (1886)
• Aligarh Muslim University ( His Dream came into being in
1920 after 22 years of his death.)
CONT
• Besides his prominent role in the educational
uplift of the Muslims, Syed Ahmed Khan’s
writings played an important role in
popularizing the ideals for which Aligarh stood.
• He also succeeded in enlisting the services of a
number of Distinguished English professors like
Bech, Morison, Raleigh and Arnold to stood
Aligarh college into a first rate institute.
CONT
• Syed Ahmed’s Aligarh Movement played a
significant role in brining about an intellectual
revolution among the Indian Muslims, thus he
succeeded in achieving his objectives, which
were Educational Progress and Social Reform.
• His efforts earned Sir Syed the title “Prophet
of Education”, Education is actual base of
Pakistan.
All India Mohammadan
Educational Conference
 Introduction
• As M.A.O College Aligarh, the greatest dream of
Sayyid Ahmed khan was achieved and this
achievement turned the tides for future events. Still
he realized that college was unable to fulfill
educational problems of Muslims of India. Sayyid
Ahmed khan launched All-India Muhammedan
Educational Congress in 1886, later on changed to
“Conference” for Muslims to provide them a forum
through which they could get educational
awareness.
CONT
• The All India Muhammadan Educational
Conference was an organization promoting
modern, liberal education for the Muslim
community in India. It was founded by Sir Syed
Ahmed Khan, also the founder of the Aligarh
Muslim University. All India Mumammadan
Educational Conference was the origin of the
All-India Muslim League.
CONT
• All India Muslim Educational Conference (AIMEC), a
Non-political organization which brought Muslims
social and political leaders, intellectuals and
distinguished people from all of walks of life onto
one platform for educational empowerment of
Muslims of India. It transformed the dimensions of
Aligarh Movement and fulfilled the dream of its
founder, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan by converting
Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College (M.A.O.
College) to Aligarh Muslim University.
 CONT
• The Conference also became championing the
cause of Women’s education and gave birth to
one of the oldest and biggest women’s
educational institution, Women’s College of
Aligarh. This non-political, All India Muslim
Educational Conference which was started for
educational empowerment of Muslims of
India also gave birth to largest Muslim political
party “Muslim League”.
 CONT
• The AIMEC held it inaugral meeting on
December 27,1886 at M.A.O College in the chair
Moulvi Samiullah Khan. It was attended by 161
delegates from all over. The Inaugural session at
Aligarh adopted the following resolutions:
• Establishment of “AIMEC” and to hold its annual
session in different parts of the country.
• British Government should only take care of
modern and western education.
CONT
• Muslims will take care of Oriental studies.
• Promote publications of journals and special
attention should be paid for memorization of
Quran (Hifz-e-Quran)
• The Head Office of Muslim Educational
Congress will be at Aligarh.
 objectives of the Conference
• The main objectives of the Conference were:
• To provide a platform for Muslims to get higher education.
• To arrange a forum through which religious education
should be taught in English medium schools of Muslims.
• To provide a forum for ullama and religious scholars to
encourage diniyat and oriental studies in the schools of
Muslims, and support them to take forward religious tasks.
• To provide a   forum, through which the declined status of
religious institutions should be improved. 
CONT
• The annual meetings of AIMEC were regularly
held every year in different parts of the
country. Sir Syed Ahmed acted as the
secretary of the Conference till the time of his
death. He himself took care of regularly
publishing of conference proceeding every
year.
CONT
• The holding of meeting every year under
conference proved a great success for their
required results. People from all-India
gathered and sit together, to talk about their
problems,  solutions, and suggestions. This
was the first and the only platform for the
Muslims where they gathered for their united
cause. The AIMEC conference provided a
unique platform.
CONT
• One branch of conference was anjuman-e-
tarraqi-e-urdu, in which many important tracts
were published under the conference like
‘Musilmanon ki ghuzishta taleem’, ‘Al-jazia’
and few articles like “Kutab Khana Sikanderia”,
“Huqooq-uz-Zimmiyan”, “Muslimanon ki
Taraqqi-o-Tanazili kai Asbab”.
CONT
• The AIMEC also provided the platform for Muslims
to display their inborn qualities of people like
Moulana Shibli Nomani, Moulana Altaf Hussain Hali,
Mohsin-ul-Mulk and Moulvi Nazir Ahmed.They used
their hidden talents through this platform by
delivering speeches and poetry to show their desire
for education, passion for self respect and national
sympathy. Through this platform greatest
contemporary literacy figures were sharpened like
Abdul Kalam Azad.
 Initiatives of the Conference
• The conference took the initiative to look after the
matters concerning the Indian Muslims generally:
• i) Oriental and religious education should be started
in Government Schools.
• ii) Social issues; to curb Non-Islamic and heinous
traditions from the Muslim society.
• iii) An extra effort to put for promotion of women’s
education.
• iv) Demands were made to remove derogatory and
anti-Islamic contents from History course books.
CONT
• V) Translation of literary works of different languages
into Indian languages.
• vi) The need of women education was felt and a
proposal to start a women education section in
Muslim Educational Conference was accepted. The
idea to start girl’s schools is all the state capitals was
initiated. Later, girls’ school at Aligarh was established.
• vii) Conference also accepted Theodore proposal
regarding education reforms to continue their struggle
and effort regarding education.
CONT
• As AIMEC was a non political organization, yet
anything delivered through platform of
conference was considered collective demand
of Muslims. Sayyid Ahmed also delivered his
first anti-congress speech through this
platform.
 All India Muslim League
• The first ever political party of the Muslims in
the history of India, “The All India Muslim
League” was formed on the platform of this
conference. AIMEC played very important role
in the life of Muslims to get their rights,
education and later on separate state in the
shape of Pakistan.
 Death
• Great Scholar and Leader died on 27th March
• 1898, at Aligarh, India.