One of my hero's is Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, and one of the biggest things he did was to launch the Aligarh Muslim University for Indian Muslims. Alumni of this august institution are all over the world and is considered to be one of the premier Muslim Universities in the world. I would put this above Al Azhar in Cairo as well, mainly because this is a modern university and produced and produces Indians with whom I can identify and be proud of while Azhar is the oldest, its basically more of a religious university.
But recently, it has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. See another opinion here. The students burnt down buildings and rioted because of the death of a student and a previous rape of a girl student.
What is this? Sir Syed's dream of creating and running a university which will bring the hidebound Indian Muslim population out of the doldrums of traditional learning into the scientific age is now shut. Ask any Indian Muslim as to the first challenge that Indian Muslims face and they would almost invariably point to lack of education. And what do they (administration, staff and students) do to the foremost seat of learning?
As an aside, quite a lot of Muslim thinkers point to the destruction of Baghdad, the foremost seat of learning in medieval times, by the Mongol Hulagu, as the start of the decay in Muslim Civilisation.
All this to be taken with a grain of piquant salt!!
No comments:
Post a Comment