The Aligarh Movement and Muslim Reform

6.1 Sir Syed Ahmed Khan (1817–1898)

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was a Muslim judge in Bijnore during the 1857 revolt — he protected British officers from the rebels. He later wrote The Causes of the Indian Revolt (1858), arguing that the British had misunderstood Indian society. He spent his career arguing for Muslim acceptance of Western education and British political loyalty.

Key Institutions

• Muhammedan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College, Aligarh (1875): Taught Western sciences in English with Islamic religious instruction — the Muslim equivalent of Hindu College Calcutta. It became Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in 1920.
• Scientific Society (1864, Ghazipur): Translated English scientific and historical works into Urdu — making Western knowledge accessible to Urdu-reading Muslims.
• Muhammadan Educational Conference (1886): Annual gathering to discuss Muslim educational progress.

Political Positions

• Initially secular and constitutional — worked with INC founder A.O. Hume.
• After 1887, opposed Congress as a Hindu-dominated body that would harm Muslim interests in a democratic system where Hindus were the majority. His logic: "If elections are based on majority rule, Muslims will always lose."
• Advocated separate Muslim political identity — a direct intellectual precursor to Muslim League (1906) and the two-nation theory.

Aligarh Literary Tradition

The Aligarh movement also produced the Aligarh Literary Movement in Urdu literature — Altaf Hussain Hali (Musaddas-e-Hali, 1879), Mohammed Husain Azad (Aab-e-Hayat, Urdu literary history) — promoting rational, realistic Urdu prose and poetry.

6.2 Deoband Movement (1867)

Dar ul-Ulum Deoband (founded 1867 by Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, Deoband, UP) was an Islamic seminary representing a very different Muslim reform tradition. It aimed to:

• Preserve Islamic learning independent of British patronage.
• Train ulama (Islamic scholars) in traditional sciences.
• Reject Western education while opposing popular "corrupt" Islamic practices (shrine worship, saint veneration).

Deoband became one of the world's most influential Islamic education institutions — graduating scholars who spread the Deobandi school across the Islamic world. Unlike the Aligarh school, Deoband favoured the Khilafat Movement (anti-British) in the 1920s and its graduates tended towards Congress rather than Muslim League.

---