Sir Syed was not a prophet, but he was engaged in the work of prophethood all his life, especially in the last years of his life, he spent all his talents in removing the veils of human delusions with divine revelation.
Sir Syed never presented himself as a commentator beyond criticism and analysis. However, in the history of Islam, many distinguished personalities have invoked Al-Ahmini Rabi in order to add weight to their words or to gather people around them. Shah Waliullah Dehlvi is the best example in this regard. Sir Syed was familiar with this sand of Islamic rulers.The axis and center of the new knowledge that they wanted to create were the pages of divine revelation, which required human intellect and understanding to access them; A world of prudence, rationality, and thinking that is formed by a mixture of revelation and reason, where revelation and reason support each other, not negation.
In such an era when mujahideen, revelations and observation of the truth are common and for the pious people this heavenly style of speaking is not even considered to be defective, it is a great achievement of Sir Sayyid that he devoted himself to the search for true Islam. presented as a good student. This mixed mood became a problem for him. Those who considered the rulers of Islam to be the guardians of revelation and those who did not have the courage to open their mouths on deviance and deviations.
Sir Syed wanted to create a rational attitude, if he presented his religious interpretations or understanding of religion in the light of Al-Humni Rabbi, the beginning of a purely rational and student attitude would not have been possible. From this point of view, in the decadent Muslim society of the nineteenth century, when the lamp of Islamic truth had been extinguished, this call to present the Holy Quran as a manifesto for common people and enlighten their lost paths with the revelations of divine revelation was per se. It was nothing short of a renaissance feat. Although this renewed status of Sir Syed has been rarely recognized and acknowledged.
Despite all his magnanimity and scholarly majesty, Sir Syed was essentially a human being, so it was natural for his movement to have human slippages and tactical tolerances. Sir Syed went to the western schools of learning in search of modern science, these were actually the same schools of knowledge that were established under the leadership of the Muslims of the Middle Ages. Sir Syed was breathing in such an era when the scientific and cultural history of Muslims was somewhat lost in the 19th-century intellectual fringes in such a way that even the great scholars and thinkers were not aware of its historical significance. The Bhangis and Khakrubs of the British were considered to be highly civilized people. It was not long ago when ordinary Muslims were devoid of the feeling that this new world of thought, art, science, and exploration, the leadership of which the West seems to be occupying today, was actually formed by the hands of Muslim scholars and scholars as a result of the revelation of the Qur’an. There is pie. Of such a man
The first period of the Aligarh movement was a turbulent one in our decadent national history. For the first time, leadership came into the hands of a person who was not a claimant of discovery and inspiration but a fan of wisdom and revelation. Whose claim was that what would be contrary to reason, even revelation could not support it. Fariq al-Aql interpretations and late stories, which stood guard over the pure source of divine revelation, and which received the status of the final letter in relation to the thought of the ancestors or the interpretation of the words, Sir Syed made these interpretations by an ordinary student of the Holy Qur’an.
Sir Sayyid was well aware of the point ‘as Abdah has written’ that divine revelation is to all the worlds. A timeless gift to humanity from which each generation will continue to receive its share of light. Sir Syed’s exegetical efforts put the Holy Qur’an on the table of human study in such a way that in the days to come, no notable commentator and commentator of the subcontinent could remain without his interpretation. Although few people have openly admitted this. Maulana Azad in his story has mentioned the influence of Fiqr Sir Syed in a great way. Deputy Nazir Ahmad, who has a world-renowned understanding of the Qur’an, is among the followers of Sir Syed, and Abul Ala Maududi seems to be a seeker of the commentaries of Deputy Nazir Ahmad and Sir Syed in his schools.
A mere incomplete movement of education without the retrieval of divine revelation could not have produced the results that Sir Syed had dreamed of with waking eyes in those days when he had little time to complete the exegesis, the force was responding. And they had barely reached the last verses of Surah Kahf when the message of death came.
Sir Syed was a man of great courage. He insisted on his intellectual strength. In the last years, he was only tasked with presenting the Qur’an to the new generation in such a way that it could be read and treated as a living practical manifesto instead of a book of recitation or a book of blessing. Unfortunately, due to the practical difficulties of establishing the college, the anger of the opponents, and the strong negative propaganda of the conservative scholars and their fatwas, Sir Syed continued his project of commentary, but the department of theology in the college was handed over to the traditional clerics.
According to Allama Iqbal:
“Perhaps he (Sir Syed) is the first modern Muslim who foresaw a positive glimpse of the days to come…. His real greatness lies in the fact that he was the first Indian Muslim to renovate Islam. felt the need and took regular steps for it. We may disagree with his religious views, but it cannot be denied that he is the first man among troubled souls who passed the demands of the modern era. (But alas) the stereotypical mentality of Indian Muslims, which was out of touch with ground realities, failed to realize the greatness and significance of Sir Syed’s religious thought.”
In the days to come, this project of modernizing Islamic thought continued with Iqbal in a slightly higher harmony.
Whereas according to Iqbal, the fault was not of Sir Syed but of the stereotypical mindset of Indian Muslims who failed miserably to appreciate the true significance of Sir Syed’s reform efforts.
The result of delaying Sir Syed’s interpretive efforts was that the idea of starting a new and comprehensive movement in the coming days kept haunting us. In fact, this was the motivation behind the publication of Tehsib-ul-Akhlaq after the passage of the new Act by Parliament in 1891. It is another thing that this revolutionary magazine, on whose tablet is still written Muhammadan Social Reformer, has gradually assumed the status of a literary magazine which surprises the reader, even if it does not talisman away from the bitter realities of the ground. The tour is definitely going on.
Syed Hamid was the most qualified person to lead the second phase of the Aligarh Movement, in whose tenure nature had also provided equipment for the partial restoration of the University Act. The Khurram caravan left again towards the destination. But Sayane says that whenever the re-publishing of the commentary was discussed in front of him, he kept silent despite himself.
“We have not done justice to Sir Syed by placing his commentary on odd women, neither to ourselves nor to the coming generations” (Fikr and Nazar, Shah, 1990
In view of the problems faced by Sayyid Hamid during his tenure, it was not possible for him to open a new intellectual front, and due to his conciliatory nature, he could not take the risk of opposing fatwas of the scholars.)
Aligarh is the vanguard of the Pemberana Mission in the Indo-Pak subcontinent. Its brilliance depends on the editing of the new knowledge and the direct acquisition of grace from divine revelation. By dismissing the religious thought of Sir Syed, we cannot ignore the full fruits of the Aligarh movement.
In the coming days, when the university community will be celebrating the bicentenary of Sir Syed, the only thing we can do is publish a repository in the form of beautiful volumes containing all the writings of the founder of this school and our benefactor. Make their intellectual capital, especially the innovative efforts of interpretation, the subject of study and trial. Until the sands of turning the pages of the Holy Qur’an with a student mind and a believing heart like Sir Syed are established again, a directionless dream will remain the fate of Aligarh and the people of Aligarh
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