ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY (AMU)

Subject : History

Context : Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the centenary celebrations of Aligarh Muslim University on 22 December, 2020.

Concept :

• AMU became a University in 1920, through an Act of Indian Legislative Council by elevating the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental (MAO) College to the status of a Central University.
• MAO College was set up in 1877 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan.
• The University campus is located in the city of Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh. It also has three off-campus centres in Malappuram (Kerala), Murshidabad-Jangipur (West Bengal) and Kishanganj (Bihar).

Contributions of Syed Ahmed Khan

• He started his career as a civil servant and served the British before the revolt of 1857.
• The 1857 revolt was one of the turning points in Syed Ahmed’s life and he penned a pamphlet titled “The Causes of the Indian Revolt” to explain the reasons of the revolt from a “native perspective”.
• He supported the British during the 1857 revolution. In 1859 he published the booklet Asbab-e-Baghawat-e-Hind (The Causes of the Indian Revolt) in which he studied the causes of the Indian upheaval.
• He raised voice against the existing religious intolerance, ignorance and irrationalism prevailing in the society at that time.
• He denounced the orthodox systems of purdah, polygamy and easy divorce of the Muslim community.
• Tahzebul Akhlaq (Social Reformer in English), a magazine founded by him, tried to awaken people’s consciousness on social and religious issues in very expressive prose.
• He instituted the Scientific Society in 1863 to instill a scientific temperament into the Muslims and to make the Western knowledge available to Indians in their own language.
• He launched The Aligarh Institute Gazette, an organ of the Scientific Society in March 1866 and succeeded in agitating the minds in the traditional Muslim society.
• In 1875, Sir Syed founded the Madarsatul Uloom in Aligarh and patterned the MAO College after Oxford and Cambridge universities that he went on a trip to London. His objective was to build a college in line with the British education system but without compromising its Islamic values.

The Aligarh Movement:

• Sir Syed Ahmad Khan is best known for the Aligarh Movement a systemic movement aimed at reforming the social, political and educational aspects of the Muslim community.
• In 1886, he set up the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental Education Congress which was later renamed the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental Educational Conference. It aimed to bring together education and culture.
• He also emphasised the need for an autonomous Muslim institution free of any government funding.
• It undertook to modernise Muslim’s education by adapting English as a medium of learning and western education rather than just focusing on traditional teachings.
• The movement helped the Muslims revival and gave them a common language Urdu.