Syed Ahmed Khan

Syed Ahmed

Sir Syed

Sayyid Ahmad Khan

Saiyid Ahmad Khan

Aligarh, India

4 May 1869 – 4 September 1870

Syed Ahmed Khan was born to an aristocratic family with strong ties to the imperial Mughal court of Delhi. He was educated at home in the traditional manner of aristocratic Muslims, and joined the East India Company administration in 1838. He served primarily as a judge in his career, but produced works of history, archaeology, architecture and religion, particularly Islam and Christianity.

In 1869, Khan travelled to England to accompany his son Syed Mahmood who had been awarded the newly-instituted government scholarship to study at Cambridge. Khan also brought with him his other son, Syed Hamid, a family servant Azimullah, also known as Chhajju, and Mirza Khudadad Beg, another government scholar. On the voyage in, Khan published his travel experiences serially in his weekly newspaper, the Aligarh Institute Gazette, and courted much controversy for his harsh views on Indians and their lack of progress, particularly in education. On board, he met an ayah named Naseeban who had travelled to Britain over twenty times, which impressed him greatly.

Once in London, Khan embarked upon several projects. One was the research for and publication of twelve pamphlets in the form of A Series of Essays on the Life of Mohammed and Subjects Subsidiary Thereto in which he rebutted what he considered the blasphemous views expressed by the scholar-administrator Sir William Muir in his four-volume book Life of Mahomet (1858-1861). Khan also collaborated with John Davenport, a minor Orientalist, and financed the publication of his book An Apology for Mohammad and the Koran, which was printed privately by J. Davy & Sons in 1869. The publication of both works was to provide authentic information about Islam to European readers and English-educated Muslims.

Khan observed educational institutions in Britain, including the University of Cambridge, on which he modelled the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh, which he set up with considerable input from Syed Mahmood. His experiences in England cemented his views about the importance of English education for progress. Impressed by the vibrant public sphere he encountered in London, he launched a journal Tahzib al-Akhlaq or Mohammedan Social Reformer to encourage social and educational change. While in London, he published a pamphlet on the problems with the education system in British-administered India. In addition to his pamphlets on the Indian Rebellion of 1857, he also produced a report on it at the request of Sir John Kaye. These writings are notable since they were written by an Indian who had participated in the event, and whose views were being considered by the British government.

Despite financial limitations as well as his very rudimentary English, Khan met many leading figures of the time including Thomas Carlyle, Lord Stanley of Alderley, and ex-India officials such as the former Viceroy John Lawrence, who took him to several public events. He was invited to many social occasions and was present at Charles Dickens’s last public reading. Special arrangements were made for him to see the inauguration of the Holborn Viaduct on 6 November 1869 by Queen Victoria. He was made honorary member of the Athenaeum Club and was presented at the at the Queen’s Levee and at the Prince of Wales’s Levee as a special invitee, both in 1870.

Khan was awarded the Companion of the Order of the Star of India, and the Duke of Argyll presented him with the insignia and medal in August 1869. In 1888, he was made Knight Commander in the same order. He died on 27 March 1898 and is buried at Aligarh, where he had set up his College, now the Aligarh Muslim University.