This document provides a summary of a study on the response of Muslim intellectuals to British imperialism, focusing on Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. It discusses how Khan negotiated between western modernity promoted by the British and local socio-cultural values. While Khan accepted many western imperialist ideas, he did so to modernize Muslims and facilitate their survival under British rule. The document provides background on Khan's life and education. It also defines key concepts like imperialism and examines differing Muslim responses to British rule, with Khan working to reconcile Muslims to British control and advocate for western education.

1. 1
MUSLIM INTELLECTUALS RESPONSE TO BRITISH
IMPERIALSIM
A STUDY OF SIR SYED AHMAD KHAN
Rukhsana Yasmeen
Assistant Professor (History)
Queen Mary College, Lahore
‫ا‬ ‫ودل‬ ‫ن‬
‫ا‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬ ‫ر‬ ‫ا‬
[Chains of slavery are cast not on the feet but on the minds and
hearts
This is one of the greatest of the difficulties]
Allama Muhammad Iqbal
“We must at present do our best to form a class who may be
interpreters between us and the millions whom we govern; a class of
persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in
morals, and in intellect.”
Thomas Macaulay, Minutes on Education, 1835
Abstract
By the mid of the nineteenth century, Muslims from North Africa to South-East Asia
found themselves defensive in the face of European expansion. European imperialism had
become a threat to Islam politically, economically, morally and culturally. It not only
challenged the Muslim religio-cultural identity but it also attacked their generation old
customs and traditions. European domination of the Muslim world shattered the image of
Islam as an expanding worldwide force. 1.
Europe had become a constant threat to the
religious and political life of the Muslims. This image gained support and popularity by
the designs and policies of the European colonial powers. Many of the colonial
government officials and missionaries were propagating that Europe’s expansion and
domination was due to its basic cultural superiority. They were considering it their duty
to educate the natives in the language, history and sciences of the West. They were also
claiming that Christian values were a part of ‘enlightened’ policy to civilize. 2.
Responses to British imperialism passed through many phases from complete
rejection and violent confrontation to unquestioned admiration and slavish adoration. Some
people looked European aggression as another episode of Crusades, a Christian military
war against Islam. Some of the traditional Muslim religious leaders suggested that the

2. 2
Muslims should leave their country which was no longer under the Muslim rule
following the Holy Prophet’s migration to Madina. This option proved impractical
keeping in view the large number of Muslims. Another option was of jihad : a holy war
to defend the faith. But the holy war was doomed to defeat because of the superior
military strength of Europe. Some religious leaders suggested that the best solution was
a complete boycott of their colonial masters. They decided to live aloof frosm the British
and take away their children from the schools and institutions established by the English rulers.
Any form of cooperation with the British was regarded as surrender to the enemy or
treason with Islam. Modern education was regarded as something alien, unnecessary and
a danger to religious beliefs.3.
If some people rejected the western culture completely, others were eager
to ‘modernize’ themselves. They wanted that western cultural superiority should be
acknowledged in order to survive. This was a new class of modern, educated and
western-oriented people. Some of them used Islamic principles to legitimize this
transformation . The traditional Islamic basis of Muslim societies had been replaced by
the ideology, law and institutions of the West. 4. They wanted that the sources of the
West’s strength must be adopted and assimilated by the Muslims. This response was
completely in contrast to the traditional orthodox Muslims who believed that Islam was a
complete code of life and need not borrow anything from the West.5.
Reformers like Jamal-ud-Din Afghani and Muhammad Abduh in Egypt and
Syed Ahmad Khan in the Indian Subcontinent argued the compatibility of Islam with
modern science and the Western thought. They condemned the undue respect and
imitation of the past and emphasized to reinterpret (ijtihad) Islam in light of modern
conditions. They provided justifications from Islam for the acceptance of modern ideas
and institutions.6.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was one of the most prominent leaders of the
Muslims of India after 1857. In the pre-1857 period, majority of the Muslims of India
were ardently opposed to western modernity and had resolutely resisted the introduction
of western style educational institutions. They considered western values and lifestyle to
be diametrically opposed to their own culture, traditions and even religion. Sir Syed was
the first important Muslim leader who in the aftermath of 1857, appropriated and
introduced the Indian Muslims to the western values. He was the one who prepared the
ground for large scale acceptance of western culture and ideals. It was on his persuasion
and advocacy that majority of the Muslims reconciled themselves to British rule in India

3. 3
and agreed to get western education. In that way, Sir Syed occupies a unique position
amongst the Muslims of India.
This research study focuses on critical evaluation of Sir Syed’s ideas with
regards to British imperialism. It basically discusses, how Sir Syed negotiated between
western modernity,7.
advocated by British imperialist powers and the local socio-cultural
values and norms in which majority of colonized Indians lived and believed in. It
generally argues that Sir Syed mostly accepted western imperialist ideas without much
critical scrutiny and by appropriating and expounding the same ideals for the Muslims of
India, indirectly and unconsciously favoured British imperialism. It also examines the
responses of certain other Muslim intellectuals to British imperialism and points out that these
responses were not monolithic but varied and diversified. However, the main focus remains on
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, whose brief life sketch has been given in the next section.
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: A Brief Life Sketch
Sir Syed Ahmad Khan was born on October 17, 1817 in Delhi and
belonged to a “Muslim family of high nobility”. His forefathers like many other Muslim
statesmen and warriors came to India from Iran.8.
The two personalities who left a deep
impact upon his personality were his mother and his maternal grandfather. As Syed
Ahmad’s father was a religious recluse, he and his mother lived at the house of his
maternal grandfather. His grandfather was an educated and disciplined person. He had
worked for a long time in the East India Company and now he was a wazir of Mughal
ruler Akbar Shah II. In a biography of his maternal grandfather that he wrote of him
speaks proudly of his achievements and wonderful career. He recalls how the “scholar-

4. 4
bureaucrat” as the head of a large family used to enforce orderliness and good manners.
He also saw there Major General David Ochterlony as a constant visitor who was a
friend of his grandfather. Although his maternal grandfather died when he was only
eleven years old, the influence which he exercised in the character building of his
grandson was remarkable. Syed’s mother also played an important role in developing a
rational approach for Islamic teachings.9.
Mir Muttaqi, Syed Ahmad’s father also contributed much to his growing
son. The paternal influence helped Syed Ahmad to establish all important social links as
a Syed. He got personal access to the Mughal court as the son of an intensely religious
father whose religious guide was Shah Ghulam Ali of Delhi, a prominent sufi of
Mujjaddi order. In the deeply religious atmosphere on paternal side, Sir Syed developed
deep devotion to religion which marked him throughout his life.10.
The education which Syed Ahmad received in his early life was not very
systematic. It was strictly traditional and was never completed. However, he got an
adequate knowledge of the subjects taught at Muslim madrasas of the day under the
guidance of his mother. He also developed the real love for learning which enabled him
to apply that knowledge which he had gained in early days to become not only the
political but also the intellectual leader of his people.11.
After the death of his father Syed Ahmad thought of doing some job. Being
aware of his inadequate education for any job, he asked his uncle, Khalil Allah Khan,
who was Sadr Amin in Delhi to teach him the routine judicial proceedings. A few
months later he was appoited as Sarishtadar in the criminal department of his court. In

5. 5
1839, he was transferred to Agra as Naib Munshi in the office of the divisional
commissioner. He also started writing on different topics while his stay in Agra. Most of
his writings prior to the crisis of 1857 were traditional in nature and related to religious
issues. One of the most important non-religious works of Sir Syed during this period
was Asar- us-Sanadid, an archeological history of Delhi. The book contained chapters on
the birth of Urdu in India and invaluable information about the old buildings and
prominent personalities of Delhi including Syed Ahmad Shaheed and Syed Ismail
Shaheed, leaders of the Jihad movement in India.12.
Eighteen fifty seven was a landmark event in the life of Sir Syed which
metamorphosed his life. He decided to side with the British instead of the Indians. When
the revolt spread, he was working as Sadr Amin (Sub-Judge) at Bijnore. When the news
of the revolt at Delhi reached Bijnore, the local European officers and their families
were very much worried. Syed Ahmad Khan assured them to look after them even at
the risk of his life and despite heavy odds, saved their lives and protected British
interests.
As soon as the peace and order was restored after the revolt, he recorded
the events of 1857 and wrote a book on The Causes of The Indian Revolt which
occupies a unique place in Indian political literature. His view about the revolt was not
that of a historian_ detached and dispassionate_ but that of a participant. His point of
view about the revolt was that it was neither a national movement nor had it resulted
from any plot or conspiracy. According to him, main cause of the rebellion was non-
admission of Indians into the Legislative Counsils.13.

6. 6
In 1858, he was transferred to Moradabad with a promotion as Principal
Sadr Amin. It was in Moradabad that he started his work as an educationist and social
reformer. He had been planning for a long time to visit England because he wished to
study the sources of England’s strength. In 1869, Syed Ahmad’s son Syed Mahmud got
a scholarship for higher education at Cambridge. He decided to go with his son. He
stayed in England for seventeen months. He had a number of political and social
activities there. He spent much of his time in the libraries of the British Museum and
the India Office. He studied the modern British education system as he thought that his
people needed to reform themselves and the modern education was the solution to all
problems. The idea of establishing a western style educational institution had taken root
in his mind. During his stay in England, he was favourably impressed by the habits and
manners of the English people_ by their industry, their cleanliness, their punctuality and
their disciplined mode of living.14.
Towards the end of 1870, Syed Ahmad returned to India and soon after
coming back, he started an enthusiastic campaign to implement his ideas. He started
publishing Tahzib- ul- Akhlaq (Social Reformer) for which he had planned while he was
in London. Side by side with the publication of Tahzib-ul-Akhlaq, he started working for
the promotion of education. He decided to start a Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College.
In fact he wanted to establish a university on the lines of Cambridge but the
Government opposed it and ultimately a college was decided upon.
The establishment of the Aligarh College was the result of the untiring
efforts of Sir Syed and his colleagues. He considered that one college could not meet
the educational needs of all Muslims in the subcontinent and founded the

7. 7
Muhammadan Educational Conference which had to take steps for the educational uplift
of the Muslims. The Conference held the meetings in different parts of India to convey
the message of Aligarh. Sir Syed also became the member of Legislative Council in
1878 and in 1880 he was given extension for two more years.15.
In 1885, All Indian National Congress was established by a former
Secretary of Government of India, Allan Octavian Hume. Sir Syed asked his co-
religionists not to join it and warned them about the negative results of its basic
demands.
The seventh decade of Sir Syed’s life was full of excitement. He achieved
the reward of his hard work and labour during this decade. However, during the last
decade (1888-1898) of his life, he had to face some problems. In 1895, he had to face
an allegation of the embezzlement of Rs.1,17000 from the College funds by Shyam
Bihari Lall, the head clerk of the M. A. O. College. His position was cleared after an
inquiry but he felt much grief at the loss of college fund and his health broke down.
One more tragic incident which he had to face was the illness of his son and his bad
conduct which was not bearable for Sir Syed. He had focused his son for carrying on
his movement after his death. The shock was so severe that he could not recover
himself from this till his death on 27 March, 1998.16.
Sir Syed is one of the leaders of Muslim India who has attracted the
attention of a large number of scholars. There is a plethora of material, available on him
which interpret his contribution from a variety of perspectives. His biographies were
written even during his own lifetime. They have depicted different aspects of Syed

8. 8
Ahmad Khan’s thought and activity i.e., social, political, religious, educational and
cultural but nearly all of them have ignored the nexus between Sir Syed’s movement and
imperialistic agenda of the British Empire. Most of them have accepted the concept of
‘modernity’ without much critical scrutiny.
The purpose of this study is to analyze critically Syed’s thought and
activity under the framework of imperialism. It is, therefore, essential to examine the concept
of imperialism first.
Imperialism and Hegemony: Conceptual Study
The imperial history of England in India is a story of changing
circumstances, why the British came in India and how they captured its sovereignty. At
the beginning of the seventeenth century, England was not an imposing power. The
British had not come to India to capture the Mughal throne, but as humble traders to
seek trading opportunities from the Mughal emperors. They formed East India Company
for commercial purposes. They equipped themselves with the knowledge of navigation
and shipbuilding which gave them control and command of the ocean approaches to
India. When the Mughal Empire started to decline in the eighteenth century, the
Company took no time to avail this opportunity and became a formidable competitor for
political power that was initially acquired in Bengal at the end of the century.
In the nineteenth century during the industrial revolution, England paid
more attention to its interests in India with increasing effectiveness. Now the Company
became less a commercial and more a governing body. It was able to do this because
its wealth, military power, knowledge, organizational capacity grew as compared to Indian

9. 9
assets. The society that had made progress in the industrial field at home was equally
able to achieve public and private purposes abroad. British imperialism in India was
clearly the consequence because India was unable, unwilling, or uninterested in
maintaining a common or public interest against the British interest in extending its rule
there. A public purpose or ideology did not take shape until the end of the nineteenth
century to resist the British imperialism.
Raymond Williams has indicated the complexity of imperialism as a
term, which developed as a word during the second half of 19th
century and meant
“primarily a political system in which colonies are governed from an imperial centre, for
economic but also for other reasons held to be important.” In the 20th century, the term
acquired a new specific connotation as an “economic system of external investment and the
penetration and control of markets and sources of raw materials, political changes in the status of
colonies or former colonies.” 17.
Imperialism is a complex of forces that brought empires
into being and it has something to do with the rule or control of one state or nation
over another. It has been defined in the Dictionary of Human Geography as “the
creation or maintenance of an unequal economic, cultural and territorial relationship,
usually between states and often in the form of an empire, based on domination and
subordination”. 18.
Imperialism is primarily a western phenomenon which has been applied to
western political and economic dominance in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Edward Said has used the term more broadly to describe any system of domination and
subordination organized with an imperial center and a dominated periphery.19.
He has
written that

10. 10
The great modern empires have never been held together only by military
power … The key element was imperial perspective, that way of looking at a
distant foreign reality by subordinating it in one’s gaze, constructing its history
from one’s own point of view, seeing its people as subjects whose fate can be
decided by what distant administrators think is best for them. From such willful
perspectives ideas develop, including the theory that imperialism is a benign and
necessary thing.20.
Edward Said offered the distinction between colonialism and imperialism. He writes that
imperialism meant the practice, the theory, and the attitudes of a dominating metropolitan
centre ruling a distant territory while colonialism, which was almost always a consequence
of imperialism, was the implanting of settlements on distant territory.21.
Closely associated with imperialism is another term, hegemony. Hegemony,
initially meant dominance of one state or group over the others. However, it is now
generally understood to mean domination by consent. This broader meaning was coined
and popularized in the 1930s by Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), who
investigated why the ruling class was successful in promoting its own interests in
society. He believed that
Fundamentally, hegemony is the power of the ruling class to convince other
classes that their interests are the interests of all. Domination is thus exerted not
by force, nor even necessarily by acting persuasion, but by a more subtle and
inclusive power over the economy, and over state apparatuses such as education
and the media, by which the ruling class’s interest is presented as the common
interest and thus comes to be taken for granted.22.

11. 11
Thus hegemony, as enunciated by Gramsci, was the combination of coercive power of
the state machinery and the consent generated by the dominant class through the creation
of a common weltangschuuang (world view). On the level of consent, it was appropriation
of culture by a dominant group for the sake of social control. For creating a common
weltangschuuang (world view), the role of intellectuals becomes crucial which are used
by the dominant power, in the present case, the colonial state.23.
The famous French philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre has written in the preface
of -“The Wretched Of The Earth”- by Frantz Fanon that it is not very old that there
lived two types of people on the colonized lands i.e., the imperialists and the natives.
There also existed one more group between these two. They were hired kings, landlords
and a bourgeoisie. This group performed as middleman between the two main groups of
people. According to Sartre the European elites selected a group of people from the
natives to manufacture and mould them according to the principles of western culture.
These people had nothing to say by themselves to their countrymen. They just
reproduced the words which were taught to them by their imperial lords.24.
Fanon further explains the view of Sartre that the imperial powers
endeavoured by every mean to bring about and intensify the stratification of colonized
societies. They tried to dehumanize the natives. They said, “we do everything to wipe
out “their” tradition, to substitute “our” language for “theirs” and to destroy “their”
culture without giving them “ours” ”.25.
In this way the imperial powers tried to bring the colonized people to
admit the inferiority of their culture. However, the native’s reactions were not unanimous

12. 12
to this state of affairs. While the mass of the people maintained intact traditions which
were completely different from those of the colonial situation. The intellectuals struggled
in frenzied fashion for the acquisition of the culture of the occupying power and took
every opportunity of unfavourably criticizing their own national culture.26.
Rudyard Kipling, the famous Indian born British writer coined the phrase,
“White Man’s Burden”. The theme was that imperial Britain was the most civilized of
all nations and thus it was an imperial obligation to guide the colonized nations
towards the higher values of life. According to this theory, the standard for the
civilized and cultured was the West. This theory interpreted the Islamic culture
particularly and the Indian culture generally as superstitious and fallacious. The
civilizing mission was directed firstly, at the promotion of western manners and
cultural aspects and secondly, to check the Muslim culture and civilization in
India. The strong belief in the supremacy of white race over the “black man”
created a gulf between the British and the Indians specially Muslims. The only
relationship they created was of the superior and the inferior, the master and the
slave, the ruler and the subject.27.
Rudyard Kipling also wrote, “East is East West is West, Twain could never
meet”. The idea behind this phrase was that the East was inferior in everything
to the West and therefore West had a right to rule over the East.
The present study follows a descriptive, analytical method. It uses the theoretical
framework of imperialism to analyze the responses of Muslim intellectuals. Primary and
secondary sources have been used to collect the research material. Almost all the

13. 13
available speeches and writings of Sir Syed has been carefully studied to analyze his
views.
The research study has been divided into three main chapters. First chapter of the
thesis presents the political and religious ideas of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. Early political
influences which left a deep impact on Sir Syed’s ideas after 1857 have been explained.
This chapter critically examines the shifts in Sir Syed’s religious and political thoughts in
response to the colonial situations in India. In the second chapter cultural aspect of Sir
Syed’s movement has been discussed. The movement which he started after his visit to
England to bring about a change in Muslim attitudes and their culture under the
influence of the British culture is discussed critically. The third chapter presents a
comparative study of the responses of various Indian Muslim scholars whether those who
supported Syed’s movement or those who differed or criticized him in different matters.
NOTES
1. Salahuddin Malik, 1857: War of Independence or Clash of Civilizations?
(Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2008), xvii.
2. Javid Iqbal, Islam and Pakistan’s Identity (Lahore: Iqbal Academy, 2005), 153.
3. Shan Muhammad, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: A Political Biography (Lahore:
universal Books, 1976), 124-5.
4. Salahuddin Malik, 1857: War of Independence, xviii.
5.Ibid., xix.
6.Ibid.,

14. 14
7. In the entire thesis, the term, “modernity” has been used in the post –
Enlightenment western sense which has its necessary components as concepts of
rationality, progress, humanism etc.
8. Morris Dembo, “Introduction”, in Hafeez Malik, Political Profile of Sir Sayyid
Ahmad Khan (Islamabad: Institute of Islamic history culture and Civilization,
1982), XV.
9. Hafeez Malik, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Muslim Modernization in India and
Pakistan (Karachi: Royal Book Company, 1980), 67-71.
10. M. Hadi Hussain, Syed Ahmad Khan: Pioneer of Muslim Resurgence (Lahore:
Institute of Islamic Culture, 1970), 2.
11. S. M. Ikram, Modern Muslim India and The Birth Of Pakistan, (Lahore: Sh. M.
Ashraf, 1970), 19.
12. Ibid., 20.
13. Hafeez Malik, Political Profile of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (Islamabad: Institute
of Islamic Culture and Civilization, 1982), xii.
14. Javid Iqbal, Islam and Pakistan’s Identity (Lahore: Iqbal Academy, 2005),
158-160.
15. Hafeez Malik, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Muslim Modernization, 123.
16. M. Hadi Hussain, Pioneer of Muslim Resurgence, 245-251.
17. Raymond Williams, Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 159-60.
18. The Dictionary of Human Geography (4th
ed.) Wiley-Blackwell. S.v.
“Imperialism”.
19. Edward said, Culture and Imperialism (Vintage Books, 1998).

15. 15
20. Cited in Bill Ashcroft, “Exile and Representation,” in Edward Said: Legacy of a
Public Intellectual , eds. Ned Curthoys and Debjani Ganguly (Victoria: Melbourne
University Press, 2007), 77.
21. Edward Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage, 1978), 8.
22. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin, Key Concepts in Post-Colonial
Studies (London & New York: Routledge, 1998), 116.
23. For a detailed study of Antonio Gramsci, see The Gramsci Reader, Selected
Writing, 1916-1935, ed. David Forgacs (New York: New York University Press,
2000), especially the chapters VI and X.
24. Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (London: Penguin Books, 1967), p.7.
25. Ibid., 31-39
26. Ibid., 190.
27. K. K. Aziz, The British In India : A Study in Imperialism (Islamabad : National
Commission on Historical and Cultural Research, 1976) 43.