MARCH 24 The Sir Syed Formula

MARCH 24 The Sir Syed Formula Today, Sir Syed is highly acclaimed in all circles, be they religious or secular, as a pioneer of the Muslim nation. But, in his own times, he was branded as heretic, an enemy of the Muslim community and an enemy of Islam. When Maulana Altaf Husain Hali joined forces with Sir Syed, both were ridiculed by Akbar Allahabadi: Syed ki dastan ko Hali se poochhiye Ghazi Mian ka hal Dafali se poochhiye What is the reason for the difference in past and present attitudes? It is simply that those who nowadays extol his virtues, do so in retrospect, having had the opportunity to see the results of his guidance, whereas his own contemporaries were so lacking in foresight that they could not imagine any good arising from his teachings. This has been the fate of every reformer. There is no revolutionary who has not suffered from the short-sightedness of his contemporaries and who has not, as a result, had to face stiff opposition. Even the prophets were not spared this fate. It is only when the reformer’s efforts ultimately bear fruit that people begin to sing his praises. Sir Syed lived in the days of British rule in India—a period looked upon to by all our senior religious leaders as an age of slavery. Maulana Mohd. Ali Jauhar, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani, in short, all our leaders of that time hated the British. In their view, British rule afforded no possibility of Muslim progress. Maulana Mohd. Ali was not ready even to die in an enslaved India. Iqbal went one step further when he said: Ke ghulami mein badal jata hai qaumon ka zamir (slavery even drastically affects the conscience of the nations) However, Sir Syed’s thinking was totally different. He discovered favourable aspects of those same British rulers who were regularly depicted as the enemies of Islam. In the ‘slave nation,’ as Muslim intellectuals would have it, he pointed out that certain freedoms did exist. In support of Sir Syed, Maulana Altaf Husain wrote in his Mu|adda|: Hukumat ne azadiyan tum ko di hain Taraqqi ki rahen sarasar khuli hain