Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-cnmwb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-18T08:55:09.293Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Next year, if grain is dear, I shall be a Sayyid: Sayyid Ahmad Khan, colonial constructions, and Muslim self-definitions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 May 2020

DAVID LELYVELD
DAVID LELYVELD*
Affiliation:
William Paterson Universitydl1490@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

British social surveys and census statistics defined ‘Sayyid’ as a caste identity, while often casting a sceptical eye on the authenticity of genealogical claims associated with the concept. The article examines how Muslims, especially Sayyid Ahmad Khan, participated in the formulation of the concept of Sayyid identity and status. Islamic ideology and practice have long wrestled with conflicting claims of religious equality and hierarchical status, often based on concepts of sacred lineage. From his earliest writings Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–98) emphasised his descent from the Prophet Muhammad on his father's side alongside his somewhat less exalted relationship with his Kashmiri grandfather. In later years he tried to balance universalistic ideals with claims to status based on supposedly ‘foreign’ ancestry, which he cited as parallel to the supposed Aryan ancestry of high-status Hindus. His British allies used his Sayyid ancestry as reinforcement of his leadership of an India-wide Muslim ‘community’ and evidence that India was not prepared to develop into a national polity based on representative government. But the Aligarh movement's claim to represent the wider Muslim population and in particular its educational project at Aligarh struggled with a more egalitarian ethos, defining students and the members of voluntary associations as ‘brothers’, and quite prepared to cross ascriptive boundaries both in public life and personal relationships.

Keywords

Sayyid Ahmad KhanAligarh movement
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , July 2020 , pp. 433 - 448
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 ‘Jawab-e Shikwa’, Kulliyat-e Iqbal [Urdu] (Lahore, 1973), p. 203.

2 ‘Sayyid ka lafz ka istʽamal ghair bani Fatima par’, Tahzib al-akhlaq 2, 1 (second series), 1 Rajab, 1313 H. [18 December 1895], in Maqalat-i Sar Sayyid, (ed.) Mawlana Muhammad Ismaʽil Panipati Vol. 15, p. 160.

3 Of the considerable scholarly debate on the role on colonial knowledge in the history of modern Indian social and political change I am particularly indebted to the foundational essays reprinted in Cohn, Bernard S., An anthropologist among the historians and other essays (New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 136–171, 224–254Google Scholar. See also Appadurai, Arjun, ‘Number in the Colonial Imagination’, in Orientalism and the Postcolonial Predicament, (eds.) Breckenridge, Carol A. and van der Veer, Peter (Philadelphia, 1993), pp. 314–339Google Scholar. For the role of Indians in the formulation of such knowledge, see Amin, Shahid, ‘Cataloguing the countryside: agricultural glossaries from colonial India’, History and Anthropology 8 (1995), pp. 35–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar; also Pennington, Brian K., Was Hinduism Invented? (New York, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For pre-colonial anticipations, see most recently O'Hanlon, Rosalind, ‘Caste and its Histories in Colonial India: A reappraisal’, Modern Asian Studies 51, 2 (2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (New Directions in Social and Economic History: Essays in Honour of David Washbrook), pp. 432–461. For the application of colonial knowledge to Muslims, see Lelyveld, David, Aligarh's First Generation (Princeton, 1978), pp. 3–20Google Scholar; Pandey, Gyanendra, The Construction of Communalism in colonial North India (Delhi. 1990), pp. 66–108Google Scholar.

4 Ahmed, Imtiaz, ‘The Ashraf-Ajlaf Dichotomy in Muslim Social Structure in India’, Indian Economic and Social History Review 3, 3 (1966), pp. 268–278CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Marlow, Louise, Hierarchy and Egalitarianism in Islamic Thought (Cambridge, 2002)Google Scholar.

6 Embree, Ainslie T. (ed.), Sources of Indian Tradition, Vol. 1 (New York, 1988), pp. 431–436Google Scholar.

7 Ali, M. Athar, The Mughal Nobility under Aurangzeb (Bombay, 1966), pp. 14–33Google Scholar; Anooshahr, Ali, ‘Mongols, and Mongrels: The Challenge of Aristocracy and the Rise of the Mughal State in the Tarikh-i Rashidi’, Journal of Early Modern History 18, 6 (October 2014), pp. 559–577CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Qatil, Mirza Muhammad Hassan, Haft Tamasha (Lucknow, 1875), p. 117Google Scholar [Persian]; discussed in Pernau, Margrit, Ashraf into Middle Classes: Muslims in nineteenth-century Delhi (New Delhi, 2013), pp. 59–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Husain, M. Hidayat, ‘The Mirza Namah (the Book of the Perfect Gentleman) of Mirza Kamran with an English Translation’, Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, new series, 9 (1913), pp. 1–13Google Scholar.

10 Hussain, Altaf, Hali, Yadgar-i Ghalib, reprinted edition (Lahore, 1963), p. 29 [Urdu]Google Scholar.

11 Eaton, Richard M., The Rise of Islam and the Bengal Frontier, 1204–1760 (Berkeley, 1993), pp. 97–103Google Scholar, citing Karim, Abdul, Social History of the Muslims of Bengal (down to A.D. 1538) (Dacca, 1959), pp. 153–154Google Scholar. Arthur F. Buehler in an otherwise useful review of the issue relies on Eaton to defend the precolonial relevance of the Ashraf-Ajlaf dichotomy. See his ‘Trends in ashrāfization in India’, in Sayyids and Sharifs in Muslim Societies: the living links to the Prophet, (ed.) Morimoto, Kazuo (London, 2012), pp. 232–240CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

12 Shureef, Jaffur, Qanoon-e-Islam, or, The customs of the Moosulmans of India, translated by Hercklots, G. A. (London, 1832), pp. 8–16Google Scholar.

13 Dihlvi, Pyarelal Ashob, and Holroyd, W. J., Rasum-i Hind, reprinted edition (Lahore, 1961), pp. 258–260Google Scholar.

14 For example, A. A. Roberts, ‘Population of Delhie and its suburbs’, 18 July 1847, in Selections from the Records of Government, North-Western Provinces, NO. XIII, pp. 152–157.

15 Smith, Richard Saumarez, Rule by records: land registration and village custom in early British Panjab (Delhi, 1996), pp. 74–77Google Scholar.

16 Supplement to the Glossary of Indian Terms, reprinted edition (Roorkee, 1860), pp. 50–51Google Scholar.

17 ‘Numerical Strength and Distribution of the Muhammadans in the North-Western Provinces, according to the Census of 1865’, in Elliot, Henry M., Memoirs on the history, folk-lore, and distribution of the races of the North Western provinces of India: being an amplified edition of the original supplemental glossary of Indian terms, edited, revised and rearranged by Beames, John (London, 1869), Vol. 1, pp. 184–186, 192Google Scholar.

18 Williams, J. Charles, Report on the Census of Oudh (Lucknow, 1869), Vol. 1, p. 74Google Scholar. Juan Cole, using the 1891 census, has taken such figures at face value as an accurate analysis the Muslim population in Roots of North Indian Shiʽism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh, 1722–1859 (Berkeley, 1989), p. 73Google Scholar.

19 General Report on the Census of India, 1891 (London, 1893), pp. 167, 207Google Scholar. The report notes that the titles do not necessarily indicate actual ‘foreign’ descent.

20 Schwartzberg, Joseph E., A Historical Atlas of South Asia (Chicago, 1978), plate X.C.2, p. 107Google Scholar.

21 For more recent critiques of this enterprise see: Appadurai, Arjun, ‘Is Homo Hierarchicus?’, American Ethnologist 13, 4 (1986), pp. 745–761CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dirks, Nicholas B., Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of Modern India. (Princeton, 2001), pp. 3–60, 127–227Google Scholar; Kaviraj, Sudipta, The Imaginary Institution of India: Politics and Ideas, revised edition (New York, 2010)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Nesfield, John C, Brief View of the Caste System of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Together with an Examination of the Names and Figures Shown in the Census Report, 1882: 28th February 1885 (Allahabad, 1885), pp. 122–124Google Scholar.

23 Crooke, William, The Tribes and Castes of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh (Calcutta, 1896), Vol. IV, pp. 302–308Google Scholar.

24 Bonarjee, P. D., A Handbook of the Fighting Races of India, (Calcutta, 1899), p. 183Google Scholar. The author is identified as Assistant in the Military Department of the Government of India. Cf. Roy, Kaushik, ‘Race and Recruitment in the Indian Army: 1880–1918’, Modern Asian Studies 47, 4 (July 2013), pp. 1310–1347CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The classic critique of this expression of colonial racism is Nirad C. Chaudhuri, ‘The Martial Races of India’, Modern Review 48 (July, September 1930), pp, 41–51, 296–307; 49 (January, February 1931), 67–79, 215–228.

25 Khan, Sayyid Ahmad, Asbab-i sarkashi-i Hindustan (Agra, 1859), pp. 167–168Google Scholar, available at http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00urdu/asbab/urdutext1859.html (accessed May 2019). Note that all translations are mine unless otherwise noted.

26 Elliott, H. M., The History of India as told by its own historians: the Muhmmadan period, (ed.) Dowson, John, Vol. 8 (London, 1877), pp. 430–431Google Scholar.

27 Munshi Sayyid Ahmad Khan Dehlvi, Jam-i Jam ([Agra]: bi chapa-e sang lithografik [1840]); see Maqalat-i Sir Sayyid, (ed.) Panipati, Muhammad Ismaiʽil, Vol. 16 (Lahore, 1965), pp. 2–3, 13–74Google Scholar. For the manuscript of this text, dated 1839, see Rieu, Charles, Catalogue of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Museum, Vol. 1 (London, 1966), Or. 145, pp. 284–285Google Scholar, available at http://www.archive.org/details/catalogueofpersi01brituoft (accessed May 2019; thanks to C. M. Naim).

28 For further detail and references, see Lelyveld, David, ‘Young Man Sayyid: Dreams and Biographical Texts’, in Muslim Voices: Community and the Self in South Asia, (eds.) Gilmartin, David, Freitag, Sandra and Sanyal, Usha (New Delhi, 2013), pp. 253–272Google Scholar.

29 Ibid., p. 259, based on ‘Sir Sayyid ke cand khwab’, Altaf Husain Hali, Hayat-i Javid (Kanpur, 1901 [1st ed., British Library Rare Books and Mss. 14109.bbb.7], Appendix [separate pagination]. Reprinted in Panipati, Muhammad Ismaiʽil (ed.), Maqalat-i Sir Sayyid, Vol. 15 (Lahore, 1963), pp. 173–174Google Scholar. Thanks to C. M. Naim for revising my translation.

30 Ethé, Hermann, Catalogue of Persian Manuscripts in the India Office Library (Oxford, 1903), No. 2833Google Scholar.

31 Sachau, Eduard and Ethne, Hermann (eds.), Catalogue of the Persian, Turkish, Hindustani, and Pushtu Manusciption in the Bodleian Library, Part I: Persian Manuscripts (Oxford, 1889), No. 221, p. 118 [Elliot 406]Google Scholar, For further details see Lelyveld, David, ‘Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Public Sphere: Urdu Print and Oratory in Nineteenth century India’, in Islamicate Traditions in South Asia: Themes from Culture and History, (ed.) Kuczkiewicz-Fras, Agnieszka (New Delhi, 2013), pp. 136–146Google Scholar.

32 Jahangir, , The Jahangirnama: Memoirs of Jahangir, Emperor of India, translated and edited by Thackston, W. M. (New York, 1999) pp. 55, 401CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Cf. Persian text: Tuzak-i Jahangiri (Lucknow, 1914), p. 31Google Scholar, available at https://ia800604.us.archive.org/35/items/Jahangirnama/Jahangirnama.pdf (accessed May 2019), For Sayyid Ahmad's printed version, see http://sirsyedtoday.org/books/read/default.aspx?bid=292 (accessed May 2019).

33 Maqalat-i Sar Sayyid, Vol. 16, pp. 215, 463.

34 Sayyid Ahmad Khan, Tarikh-i sarkashi-i zilaʽ Bijnor [1858] in Maqalat-i Sar Sayyid, Vol. 6, pp. 272–452.

35 For example, in Ruʽdad Scientific Society, 9 January 1864 (Ghazipur, 1864).

36 A good source for the range of such words is in the work of another Sayyid Ahmad, namely Dihlavi, Sayyid Ahmad, Farhang-i Asafiya, 4 vols. (1888–1901)Google Scholar, available at https://rekhta.org/ebooks/farhang-e-asifiya-volume-001-syed-ahmad-dehlvii-ebooks/ (and following volumes) (accessed May 2019). See Hakala, Walter N., Negotiating Languages: Urdu, Hindi, and the Definition of Modern South Asia (New York, 2017), pp. 115–133Google Scholar.

37 Report of the Primary Examination of the Moradabad Mudrissa held on 1st January 1860 (Meerut, 1860?)Google Scholar. English portion and other relevant documents reprinted in Malik, Hafeez (ed.), Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Educational Philosophy: A Documentary Record (Islamabad, 1989), pp. 11–16Google Scholar.

38 British Indian Association, N.W.P. Article on the public education of India and correspondence with the British government concerning the education of the natives of India through the vernaculars (Allygurh, 1869)Google Scholar. This has both English and Urdu texts, with some significant differences. Sayyid Ahmad is quoted within the text, which suggests that he was not the major author of the rest of it. See https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=z5BeAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&pg=GBS.PA1 (accessed June 2019).

39 ʽAbbas, Asghar (ed.), Sar Sayyid ka safarnamah, musafiran-i Landan (Aligarh, 2009), pp. 101–102Google Scholar; translation in Graham, G.F.I., The Life and Work of Syed Ahmed Khan, C.S.L. (Edinburgh, 1885), pp. 103–104Google Scholar.

40 Ibid.

41 Khan, Sayyid Ahmad, The Mahomedan Commentary on the Holy Bible [Taba'in al-kalam fi tafsir al-Taurat wa al-Injil ʽala millat-i al-Islam], Part 1 (Ghazeepore, 1862), pp. 58–59Google Scholar.

42 Bahador, Syed Ahmed Khan, A Series of Essays on the Life of Muhammad and Subjects Subsidiary Thereto (London, 1870), pp. 318–319Google Scholar. See Powell, Avril A., Scottish Orientalists and India: The Muir Brothers, Religion, Education and Empire (Woodbridge, 2010), pp. 158–168, 195–212Google Scholar. What the genealogical chart lacked was the women in Sayyid Ahmad's ancestry and therefore any evidence about kinship patterns in the past. In his own and immediately subsequent generation, marriages tended to be with close relatives from his mother's family, but otherwise there is little to indicate that ancestral lineage, sayyid or something else, was a significant consideration. My best source for further research are extensive interviews that I had many years ago—1969 and 1975—with Hashim Muhammad Ali, a grandson of Sayyid Ahmad. See also Khan, Iftikhar ʽAlam, Sar Sayyid, darun-i khana (Aligarh, 2006)Google Scholar.

43 See Lelyveld, David, ‘Syed Ahmad's Problems with Women’, in Hidden Histories: Religion and Reform in South Asia, (eds.) Hyder, Syed Akbar and Bhagavan, Manu (Delhi, 2018), pp. 91–107Google Scholar.

44 Khan, Syed Ahmed, Strictures upon the present educational system in India (London, 1869)Google Scholar, reprinted in Malik, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Educational Philosophy, pp. 101–102. I have not found an Urdu original for this text. Malik also includes the response by Siva Prasad. See Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation, pp. 107–109.

45 ‘Circular from the Mahammedan [sic] Anglo-Oriental College Fund Committee, Benares, 1869’, in Malik, Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan's Educational Philosophy, pp. 97–99.

46 Khan, Syed Ahmed, Report of the Members of the Select Committee for the Better Diffusion and Advancement of Learning Among Muhammadans of India. (Benares, 1872)Google Scholar [Urdu Section], pp. 3–4, 23–24, 30–31. For further detail, see Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation, pp. 120–124.

47 Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation, pp. 166–185, 253–299.

48 Ibid., pp. 265–269.

49 Muhammadan Aijukaishanal Kangras ka dusra salana jalsa (Lucknow, 1887), pp. 67–120Google Scholar. (See in this special issue the article by Eve Tignol, which interprets this debate somewhat differently).

50 Aligarh Institute Gazette, 25 January 1895, pp. 93–94; 8 November 1895, p. 1081.

51 Khan, Sayyid Ahmad, Mukammal Majmuʽah Lekchars Wa Ispichiz (Lahore, 1900), pp. 345–360Google Scholar. See Lelyveld, Aligarh's First Generation, pp. 304–308.

52 ‘Hindu aur Musalmanon men irtibat’ [undated] in Maqalat-i Sar Sayyid, Vol. 15, p. 41. See Trautmann, Thomas R., Aryans and British India (Berkeley, 1997)Google Scholar; Thapar, Romila, The Aryan: Recasting Constructs (Gurgaon, 2011)Google Scholar.

53 ‘Qaumi itifaq’, in Maqalat-i Sar Sayyid, Vol. 5, p. 167. Undated but similar to a speech in Ludhiana in 1884 quoted in Devji, Faisal, ‘A Shadow Nation: The Making of Muslim India’, in Beyond Sovereignty, (eds.) Grant, Kevin, Levine, Philippa and Trentmann, Frank (London, 2007), p. 127Google Scholar.

54 Devji, ‘A Shadow Nation’, p. 133. See United Indian Patriotic Association, Showing the seditious character of the Indian national congress and the opinions held by eminent natives of India who are opposed to the movement (Allahabad, 1888), available at https://books.google.com/books/about/Showing_the_Seditious_Character_of_the_I.html?id=veO1AAAAIAAJ (accessed June 2019).

55 ‘Hindustan ke muʽazziz khandan’ [1876], in Maqalat-i Sar Sayyid, Vol. 5, pp. 87–96.

56 Lecture on Islam, Lahore, 1884, translated by Troll, Christian W., in his Sayyid Ahmad Khan: a reinterpretation of Muslim theology (New Delhi, 1978), p. 310Google Scholar.

57 Devji, ‘A Shadow Nation’, pp. 129–130.

58 Ibid., p. 130, but with no source to indicate that Sayyid Ahmad or his colleagues actually used this four-part construction.

59 Devji, Faisal, ‘Qawm’, in Key Concepts in Modern Indian Studies, (eds.) Dharampal, Gita, Kirloskar-Steinbach, Monika, Dwyer, Rachel and Phalkey, Jahnavi (New Delhi, 2015), pp. 217–219Google Scholar.

60 Title of an article by the Aligarh principal, Morison, Theodore, in The National Review (London) 31, 184 (June 1898), pp. 578–586Google Scholar.

61 ‘Allowance of £300 a year to Mr. Saiyid Ross Masood whilst at English University’, Judicial and Public [J&P] 3164 – 1906, India Office Records, British Library.

62 Quoted and translated in Devji, ‘A Shadow Nation’, p. 129. I have made some small changes in Devji's translation. The original source is a speech that Sayyid Ahmad gave to the Anjuman Islamiya in Rai Bareilly in 1883, reprinted in Panipati, Muhammad Ismaiʽil (ed.), Khutbat-i Sar Sayyid, Vol. 1 (Lahore, 1972), p. 365Google Scholar.