Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: First Muslim to define Idea of Two-nation theory

“Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: First Muslim to define Idea of Two-nation theory”

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was a teacher, philosopher and social reformer of 19^th century for whom educational reform was a way of life. He was a pioneer of transferring the education opportunities for Muslim. For that purpose, he established various schools in United Provinces (Today’s Uttar Pradesh) for his community. He founded Scientific Society in Ghazipore in 1863, Opened school in Muradabad in 1859 and Ghazipore in 1864. He raised various funds to establish Anglo Oriental College on 24^th May 1875 whose name has been changed in 1920 as Aligarh Muslim University.

“From Yogesh Gogwekar”

He was born on 17^th October 1817 in wealthy Muslim family who was close to Mughal court. He was loyal servant of British Empire. He was not in favour of first war of Independence 1857 and written a book to explain the reasons of the revolt. The title of the book was, ‘The Causes of the Indian Revolt’. After seeing the participation of Muslim communities in the rebellion of 1857, he was very much upset. According to him, status of Indian Muslims was very much low in socially, politically  and economically and to improve this , Muslims had to adopt positive approach to British by accepting the English education to get benefit from British, so that they could compete with Hindus ,especially Bengali Hindus who were at the pinnacle of political scene at the time.

Therefore, he pushed for political, educational and social reforms for Muslim Communities. He was very much critical of Indian National Congress. In 1988, at the time of addressing in Meerut, he said that Indian National Congress was the party of Hindu and Muslim required different party for better representation. He was first Muslim to say this and kept his community away from nationalist feeling.

Sir Syed Ahmad khan was an avid historian. He did an archaeological study of Indian languages and was honourable member of Royal Asiatic Society. He worked on collection of sculptures and rare artefacts which also included Hindu deities. 

Even though , Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was well educated and work tirelessly to improve the status of Muslim through Aligarh moment , he was the first person to bring  the idea of Two-nation theory and was known as, “Father of the Pakistan Movement “.  Therefore, one can easily make out that Aligarh Muslim university was a hotbed for Muslim separatist movement till 1947.

He died on 27^th March 1898.

Mumbai

27/05/2020