INTRODUCTION

The gentry to which Sir Sayyid Ahmad (1817–1898) belonged considered education a vehicle for cultivating the mind, while service under the state mainly a duty for men born in the concerned families; in other words, they believed that military and executive service under the state was noblesse oblige. Initially, Sir Sayyid Ahmad's thoughts on education were, quite predictably (and naturally), lofty and idealistic. He feared that education was primarily treated as a mere tool of livelihood. Rather than continuing his familial tradition of serving in the Mughal court (for which his rather rambling education had prepared him), he chose to serve the East India Company: this arguably marked the beginning of the process through which the youth from old elite families came to terms with the increasingly disorienting new world. During their lifetime, humans go through distinct phases wherein their conceptions of higher and nobler ultimate purposes of education undergo modifications and adaptations. Originally, education is the process of cultivating thinking and intellect; there is a discernible trend of the process coming closer to the realities of Sir Sayyid's time when the reins of command and control ceased to be even nominally with the ancient regime of the Mughals – the baton passed indubitably to the East India Company. Thus, to test Western education's ability to cultivate minds and enhance the learners’ future material well-being, Sir Sayyid Ahmad started experiments of establishing Western educational institutions at Moradabad in 1859 and Ghazipur in 1862. However, the character-building ability of this type of education was affected by the mediocre curriculum of universities to which his labour of love, the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental (MAO) College, was affiliated.

Over the years, educational projects metamorphosed to involve various paradigms – from using Persian as a dominant medium for attaining knowledge to including useful sciences (kaar aamad or mufeed uloom), such as agriculture, soil sciences, and allied disciplines, suitable for upgrading the overwhelmingly agrarian economy, and establishing conventional universities with the elusive vernacular as the medium of instruction. Thus, Sir Sayyid Ahmad initiated the translation of Western knowledge from various disciplines, such as philosophy, political economy, logic, and history; however, after making some progress, the pragmatic entrepreneur realized that the time available for translation was very short, and hence he stopped the translation work.

The title of this chapter refers to the testimony that Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan gave before the Indian Education Commission in 1882:

This statement before a government body makes it clear that Sir Sayyid had a definite priority, that is, the development of his college at Aligarh, designed to reform the education of Muslim men. In urging this priority to the government, he no doubt hoped for more resources to be directed towards his institution. But did that mean he was against women's education? Not necessarily. Sir Sayyid, in fact, has been praised for his support of women's education, although anyone reading the above quote would have to question that generalization.

What were Sir Sayyid's actual views towards women's education, and what did he mean by its ‘present state’? To answer these questions, one needs to consult a variety of his writings on the topic – not just his testimony before a British government body, where his motives were to urge wise expenditure. Among such writings are his biography of his maternal grandfather, Sirat-e Faridiyya, wherein he discusses his own mother's education, and his articles on the subjects of women and their rights and status, which are part of his collected writings. Only after considering in greater detail his opinions and the contexts in which he rendered them can one have a clear idea of whether or not Sir Sayyid supported women's education.

Sir Sayyid had an unusual childhood. He was raised in the household of his maternal grandfather Khwaja Fariduddin Ahmad (1747–1828), a high official in the Mughal court, who also served the British in various capacities. He was also a learned mathematician and astronomer. In Sirat-e Faridiyya, Sir Sayyid recounts reciting his Persian lesson before this formidable figure and receiving a tongue-lashing for bungling his translation from Sa`di's Bustan.

Sitting high above ground in a basket suspended between two scaffolds parallel to the enormous Qutb Minar, Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), a young munshi (clerk) of the English East India Company, read and tried to reproduce the indecipherable inscriptions on the tower in his book Asar-us Sanadid (Traces of Noblemen, also called Great Monuments of Delhi). The determination, courage, and resourcefulness demonstrated here were the hallmarks of Sayyid Ahmad's life, which was full of formidable challenges. With his imaginativeness and a keen sense of history, along with his conviction that evidence of progress is within the Muslim community, Sayyid Ahmad embarked on a progressive vision for Muslim community development in British India. His rationalist approach combined with an ethical outlook and passion transformed the lives of Muslims in India and abroad forever.

Sayyid Ahmad was born on 17 October 1817 in Mughal Delhi. He belonged to an aristocratic Muslim family who traced their genealogical roots to Prophet Muhammad. In 1864, Sayyid Ahmad moved to Aligarh – a small town, approximately 100 miles southeast of the capital city – where he spent the rest of his life. In Indian nationalist historiography, Sayyid Ahmad appears, at times, as a promoter of Hindu–Muslim unity in his early years – to him, Hindus and Muslims were ‘the two eyes of the beautiful bride that is Hindustan’. By contrast, Pakistani historiography remembers him as the architect of the two-nation theory, which eventually led to the creation of Pakistan. It is strange to attribute to him a historic event not anticipated during his time: he passed away in 1898 – forty-two years before the Muslim League raised the demand for the creation of Pakistan. Regardless of this contrasting retelling of history (one from India and the other from Pakistan), Sayyid Ahmad can be considered a true historical marker for Muslims in South Asia. Even today, he remains the unchallenged champion of Muslim modernization and community reform. Throughout his lifetime, Sayyid Ahmad envisaged a modern Muslim society by making efforts to promote modern Western education, scientific knowledge, rational thinking, religious pluralism, political accommodation, and participatory community associations founded on ethics and justice.