Islamic Reforms

Islamic Reforms

After the suppression of great revolt of 1857 Indian Muslims looked to Western culture with suspicion. The community feared that Western education, Western culture and Western ideas would endanger their religion. Therefore only a small section of Muslims accepted the new avenues for modern education.

Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan

Born in Delhi into a noble Muslim family, Sayyid Ahmed Khan thought that lack of education, especially modern education, had harmed the Muslims greatly and kept them backward. He exhorted the Muslims to accept Western science and take up government services. He founded a scientific society and translated many English books, especially science books into Urdu. He believed that the interest of the Muslims would be best served if they bonded with the British Government rather than pitch in with the rising nationalist movement. So he advised the Muslims to take to English education and to concentrate on it.

Aligarh Movement

Sayyid Ahmed Khan’s movement, the “Aligarh movement,” is so called because it was centred around the Aligarh Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental college founded by him in 1875, which is a landmark in the history of Indian Muslim education. The college was raised to the status of a university in 1920.

Deoband Movement

Deoband was a revivalist movement organized by the orthodox Muslim Ulema. The Ulema under the leadership of Muhammad QasimWanotavi (1832-80) and Rashid Ahmad Gangotri (1828 -1905) founded the school at Deoband in the Saharanpur district of the U.P in 1866. The school curricula shut out English education and western culture. The instruction imparted was in original Islamic religion and the aim was moral and religious regeneration of the Muslim community.

Maulana Mahmud -ul-Hassan became the new Deoband leader. The Jamait-Ul -Ulema (council of theologians) led by him gave a concrete shape to Hassan’s ideas of protection of the religious and political rights of the Muslims in the overall context of Indian unity.