A tale of an enduring legacy is revived

In the 21st century, two events in the life of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) stand out: the Supreme Court judgment reaffirming its status as a minority institution, and the publication of Sir Syed: A Private Life, the English translation of Sir Syed Daroon-i Khana by Iftikhar Alam Khan.

- Sadaf Fatima

A book that contains much that is essential to understanding the life of the founder of AMU, this translation, Sir Syed Ahmad Khan: A Private Life by Ather Farouqui makes available valuable material that might have remained inaccessible to scholars at a time when Urdu has become alien to the elite and when most historians rely solely on translations, many of which are not entirely accurate.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) remains one of the most consequential figures of 19th-century India, a man whose intellectual and institutional interventions altered the trajectory of Muslim life in the Indian subcontinent. He diagnosed with precision the decline of Muslims across the subcontinent after 1857 and chose modern education as the instrument of renewal.