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Three Aligarh Students: Aftab Ahmad Khan, Ziauddin Ahmad and Muhammad Ali

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

David Lelyveld
David Lelyveld
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
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Extract

IN 1912 Shaukat Ali drew from popular Hindu mythology to explain some recent disputes at Aligarh. Sayyid Ahmad Khan was represented by the god Indra, the Muslim community was his sabha, or assembly, and Aligarh College was the divine akhara, or wrestling pit. Shaukat Ali was the Red God, Muhammad Ali, the Little Red God, and Aftab Ahmad Khan, the White God.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 9 , Issue 2 , March 1975 , pp. 227 - 240
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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References

1 Ali, Shaukat, Old Boy (March–April 1913), as quoted in [Azizuddin Ahmad]Google Scholar, Report Committee Tehqīqāt mut'aliq be Old Boys Association Madrasat ul-'ulūm Aligarh (Aligarh, 1917), pp. 19–23. I have condensed and paraphrased considerably in the above rendering into English. The source of the tale is a popular play of the Oudh Court, Sayyid Agha Hasan ‘Amanat’ Lakhnavi's ‘Indra Sabha’.Google Scholar See Hasan Rizvi Sayyid, Mas'ud ‘Adib,’ Urdu Drama aur Istej (Lucknow, 1957), Pt 2. I am indebted to C. M. Naim for referring me to this work.Google Scholar

2 In the case of the earlier factional dispute between Sayyid Ahmad Khan and Sami Ullah Khan it is probably relevant that they were both from the Tiraha Bairam Khan section of Delhi and related through their mothers and wives to the same family. It is said that they quarrelled over a girl in that family who had been promised to Sami Ullah's son but married Sayyid Ahmad's. Interview with Hashim Muhammad Ali, great-grandson of Ahmad, Sayyid, Karachi, 1969;Google Scholar also Husain Mir, Wilayat, Āp Bēti (Aligarh, 1970), p. 67.Google Scholar

3 Aftab, Mir Wilayat Husain, Shaikh Abdullah, Sayyid Tufail Ahmad, Habibullah Khan and Azizuddin Ahmad Bilgrami.Google Scholar

4 I have collected data from a variety of sources on the social backgrounds and later careers of Aligarh students of the late nineteenth century (Lelyveld, David, ‘Aligarh's First Generation: Muslim Solidarity and English Education in Northern India, 1875–1900,’ unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, 1975).Google Scholar

5 Chiefs and Families of Note in the Punjab (Lahore, 1940), Vol. I, pp. 14–24.Google Scholar

6 Interview with Abad Ahmad Khan, son of Aftab Ahmad Khan, Lahore, 1969.Google Scholar See also Ahmad Khan, Sultan and Ahmad Khan, Aftab, Hayāt-e Ahmadi (Badaun, 1925), p. 4.Google Scholar

7 They only met in the dark. Interview with Abad Ahmad Khan.Google Scholar

8 Diary of Aftab Ahmad Khan Ahmadi, Sahibzada, 1892–1893, Aligarh University Archives [hereafter, Aftab, Diary].Google Scholar

9 Khan, Habibullah, Hayāt-e Aftāb (Allahabad, 1947), p. 6.Google Scholar

10 See Qaisar Jan, Ahsan, ‘Shahbaz Khan Kambu’, Medieval India: A Miscellany (Bombay, 1969), Vol. I, pp. 48–9;Google Scholar also discussions with Mushtaq Ahmad, son of Viqar ul-mulk (who was also a Kambu) and Begam Mushtaq, a niece of Dr Ziauddin, Aligarh, 1968–1969.Google Scholar

11 Muhammad Zuberi, Amin, Zia-e Hyāt (Karachi, n.d.), pp. 11–14.Google Scholar

12 Ali, Mohamed, My Life: A Fragment (Lahore, 1942), p. 12.Google Scholar

13 Ahmad Jafri, Rais, Sirat-e Muhammad Ali (Delhi, 1932), pp. 8–9Google Scholar interview with Razia Begam (Mrs. Shakir Ali Khan), daughter of Zulfiqar Ali, Lahore, 1969, and Maulana Malik, Abdul, son of Zulfiqar Ali, Karachi, 1969.Google Scholar

14 Ali, Mohamed, My Life, pp. 11–12.Google Scholar

15 Ibid., pp. 5, 27–8.

16 But the elder brothers sometimes broke new ground in their personal lives: Zulfiqar Ali in joining the Ahmadiyya movement, Sultan Ahmad Khan in marrying English women. (Interviews already cited.)Google Scholar

17 Report of the Select Committee for the Better Diffusion and Advancement of Learning among the Muhammadans of India (Benares, 1872), p. 60.Google Scholar

18 Ali, Shaukat, ‘The Late Mr. Beck and His Pupils’, Aligarh Monthly III, 10 (12, 1905), p. 9.Google Scholar

19 This paragraph is based on material in the Aligarh Archives, the Aligarh Institute Gazette [A.I.G.] and M. A. O. College Magazine [M.A.O.C.M.].Google Scholar

20 Aftab, Diary, 13 October, 1893, recalls the events of ten years earlier when a clique was organized against Sajjad Hussain, son of Altaf Hussain Hali, the Vice President of the Union. Beck was always President.Google Scholar

21 Ahmad Badauni, Qamruddin, Mahfil-e Azīz (Hyderabad, 1962), pp. 115, 120–5.Google Scholar

22 Khan, Habibullah, Hayāt-e Aftāb, pp. 7–31.Google Scholar

23 Aftab, , Diary, 17 August 1892.Google Scholar

24 S. A. (Shaukat Ali), ‘How I Passed My B.A.’, M.A.O.C.M. I, 3 (09 1894), p. 82.Google Scholar

25 Ali, Shaukat, ‘The Late Mr. Beck and His Pupils’ M.A.O.C.M. IX, 6–7 (06–07 1901) (The article cited at note 18 was a sequel)Google Scholar; also ‘Silani’, ‘Yād-e Ayām’, Old Boy I, 4 (01 1928), pp. 32–7.Google Scholar

26 Ali, Mohamed, My Life, pp. 27–8; also scattered references in M.A.O.C.M.Google Scholar

27 A.I.G. XXVII, 54 (5 07 1892), p. 721.Google Scholar

28 ‘Petition from Khushi Muhammad Khan (Student), dated 30 July 1893’, Aligarh Archives.Google Scholar

29 Muhammad, Khushi to Sayyid Ahmad, n.d., ?B/1893; Sayyid Ahmad to Beck, 30 July 1893, 248(?)A/1893, Aligarh Archives.Google Scholar

30 Khan, Habibullah, ‘College kē tālib 'ilmōN ki halāt meeN taghaiyyur’, M.A.O.C.M. I 3 (1 09 1894), pp. 84–5;Google Scholar Abdullah, , ‘College kē tēlib 'ilmōN kē meeN taraqqi’, same issue, pp. 86–93Google Scholar; also M.A.O.C.M. I, 4 (1 11 1894), pp. 147–52.Google Scholar

31 Memo by Burn, R., 4 January 1911, based on conversation with Theodore Morison in ‘Correspondence in Connection with Muhammadan Affairs from 1912–14’, Meston Papers, India Office Library, London.Google Scholar

32 Zuberi, , Zia-e Hayāt, p. 18; also Beck to Sayyid Ahmad 10 August, Sayyid to Beck 11 August, Beck to Sayyid 10 August in 248B/1895, Aligarh Archives.Google Scholar

33 Aftab, , Diary 12 August 1893.Google Scholar

34 Ikram, S. M., Modern Muslim India and the Makers of Pakistan (Lahore, 1965), p. 159.Google Scholar

35 A.I.G.; see also Khan, Habibullah, Hayāt-e Aftāb, pp. 54–70.Google Scholar

36 Ali, Mohamed, The Proposed Mohamedan University (Bombay, 1904).Google Scholar

37 Report of the Committee of Enquiry at Aligarh; M.A.-O. College, March 1907 (Allahabad, 1907).Google Scholar

38 Pirzada Syed, Sharifuddin (ed.), Foundation of Pakistan (Karachi, 1969), pp. 68–76 (for example).Google Scholar

39 Ruidād Old Boys Association, 1904–1920, Old Boys Lodge, Aligarh. Also Committee Tehqīqāt, loc. cit.Google Scholar

40 Ali, Shaukat to Muhammad Ali, 30 March 1911, Muhammad Ali Papers, Jamiah Milliah Islamiah, New Delhi; I am indebted to Gail Minault for this reference.Google Scholar

41 Bhatnagar, S. K., History of the M.A.O. College Aligarh (Aligarh, 1969), facing p. 320.Google Scholar

42 Aligarh Monthly (May 1913), pp. 121–5; Morison, Theodore, ‘Notes on the Muhammadan Situation’, Confidential Menorandum (1913) in Meston Papers, p. 115, India Office Library.Google Scholar

43 Ahmad Khan, Aftab, Kalīd-e Siyasat-e Hind (Aligarh, 1916). When the Indian National Congress and the Muslim League met jointly in Lucknow to work out the compromise Lucknow Pact of 1916, Aftab tried to draw off Muslim participants by holding the meetings of the Muslim Educational Conference at the same time in Aligarh. The following year Aftab's friends organized the Muslim Defence Association as a break-away from the Muslim League.Google Scholar

44 Minault, Gail and Lelyveld, David, ‘The Campaign for a Muslim University, 1898–1920’, Modern Asian Studies, 8, 2, pp. 188–9.Google Scholar

45 A reliable interview with a former Professor at Aligarh who is sympathetic to Ziauddin.

46 A different reliable interview with a former student of the period.

47 Zuberi, , Zia-e Hyāt;Google Scholar Saadat Khan, Muhammad, Khan, Habibullah, Tufail Ahmad, Sayyid et al. , The Aligarh of Today (Aligarh, n.d. [1942?]).Google Scholar

48 See references at previous note for conflicting testimony on Ziauddin's attitude to Jinnah and Pakistan. Positions on partition wavered considerably on all sides; few were comfortable about leaving Aligarh behind and migrating to Pakistan.

49 Abdul, Mājid Daryabadi, ‘Muhammad Ali Alig’, Aligarh Megzin (Aligarh Number) 1953–1954, 1954–1955), p. 67.Google Scholar