Sir Syed Ahemad Khan: Islamic Reformer in British India

Sir Syed Ahamed Khan (1817-1898) was an ardent reformer who worked to reconcile modern scientific thought with Islam. This was to be done, of course, not by attacking any basic belief, but by a rationalistic interpretation of scripture. He pointed out the basic similarities between Islam and Christianity. He was opposed to any allegiance to the Turkish Khalifat.^[1] He also tried to reform the social abuses in the Muslim community. He attacked purdah (the seclusion of women) among the Muslims. He condemned the systems of ‘piri’ and ‘muridi’. He also condemned the institution of slavery and described it un-Islamic. His progressive ideas were propagated through his magazine ‘Tahazib-ul-Akhlaq’.^[2]  In his ‘Commentaries of the Quran’, he criticized the narrow outlook of traditional interpreters.

Above all, he was anxious to put a new type of education. He advocated English education for the regeneration of the Muslims in India. The beginnings of the national movement frightened him, for he thought that any opposition to the British authorities would deprive him of their help in his educational program. That help appeared to him to be essential, and so he tried to tone down anti-British sentiments among the Muslims and to turn them away from the National Congress, which was taking shape then. One of the declared objects of the Aligarh College^[3] was “to make the Musulmans of India worthy and useful subjects of the British Crown.”^[4]   He was not opposed to the National Congress because he considered it predominantly a Hindu organization; he opposed it because he thought it was politically too aggressive (though it was mild enough in those days), and he wanted British help and cooperation. He tried to show that Muslims as a whole had no rebelled during the Mutiny^[5] and that many had remained loyal to the British power.

He was in no way anti-Hindu or communally separatist. Repeatedly he emphasized that religious differences should have no political or national significance. “Do we not inhabit in the same land?” he said. “Remember that the words Hindu and Mohammedan are only meant for religious distinction; otherwise all person, whether Hindu or Mohammedan, even the Christians who reside in this country, are all in this particular respect belonging to one and the same nation.”

Sir Syed received various rewards in his life. He was chosen as a member of Imperial Legislative Counsil in 1878 and later was conferred Knighthood in 1888. He passed away in 1898 and very rarely after his death the Muslim community of India could find the leader of his personality and intelligence.

Footnotes:
1. Caliph or Khalifa of Turkestan was considered to be the head of Muslims all over the world in those days.
2. Tahazib-ul-Akhlaq (Improvement of Manners and Morals) was an Urdu magazine started by Sir Syed in 1870.
3. Aligarh school was established  by Sir Syed in 1875, which later became Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, which finally became Aligarh Muslim University by the law of parliament in 1920 after his death.
4. As quoted by Jawaharlal Nehru in his Discovery of India.
5. The Great Revolt of 1857.

David Diop: A voice of Negritude

Yesterday, I got to read the poem 'Africa' by a Senegalese poet David Diop, which is considered as a milestone in the history of West African literature.  In order to know more about the poet, I went on googling and was very much surprised to find very little or almost no information about him on net--just one or two poetry pages and one or two blog posts.  Even the English Wikipedia has no article on Diop, and I had to translate the French wiki page (that itself was a stub) to know a bit more about him.  Here is the essence of all that I could find.

David Diop was born to a Senegalese father and Cameroonian mother in the city of Bordeaux, France, in 1927.  He debuted writing poetry while he was still at school.  He was one a contributor to Leopold Senghor's (who would later become the first president of independent Senegal) anthology of poems published in French.  This was a major milestone in the history of black french literature as it put forth the movement of 'Negritude' by asserting the greatness of black people contrary to the white man's dismissal of them as primitive and uncivilized.

Diop's poetry talks about the glorious past of Africa and also recollects the untold sufferings and humilities endured by the Africans in the last few hundred years.  It also warns the Africans that political freedom will not essentially bring back their old glory and they have to work had to regain it or they will only get "the bitter taste of liberty."

Diop suffered from poor health for the most part of his life and died at a very early age of 33 in an air crash off Dakar, Senegal, in 1960.  His poetry will always be remembered as one of the keystones in the arch of African literature.

African Literature, French Literature

Paul Samuelson: Father of Modern Economics

I don't care who writes a nation's laws or crafts its advanced treaties, if I can write its economics textbooks.  ~Paul Samuelson.

The news came last night.  Paul Samuelson, whose work helped to form the basis of modern economics, died on December 13, 2009 at the age of 94 after a brief illness.  Paul Samuelson was best known for his work about making economics more practical and oriented towards problem-solving rather than just subject of academic discussions.  He was the first American to get a Nobel Prize for Economics in 1970.  The Nobel Prize Committee stated, while giving the award, that he has "done more than any contemporary economist to raise the level of scientific analysis in economic theory."  He is justly considered as 'Father of Modern Economics' for his contribution revitalization of the basic economics by Keynes.

Samuelson is mostly known for his epoch-making book Economics: An Introductory Analysis, which has been used as a standard textbook of economics worldwide over decades with a print of millions of copies with above 40 editions and reprints.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where Paul Samuleson devoted his career, notes:  "The world is different today because he was with us for many years."  The world of economics too feels the same paying its modest homage to the economist of the economists.

Paul Samuelson