Syed Ahmed Khan

"This statement of Mr Hume is entirely and utterly false. I am at a loss to conceive how English gentlemen have adopted those qualities which Lord Macaulay has so eloquently described as characteristic of the Bengali....I am grieved that Mr Hume should have .thought me capable of such ideas-ideas which he would hardly attribute to the meanest and guiltiest of mankind. I can only account .for it by remembering that lie is also an old man, and that through his close intimacy with :aengalis his method of thought may well have been distorted into this most un-English character.'251-2"

"To the Muslim community Sir Syed Ahmed Khan was and is like the eye which weeps for the suffering of any and every part of the body."

"“As is well-known, he secured donations for Aligarh from Hindus of his own feudal class. When canvassing for their support he expressed such exemplary sentiments as that Hindus and Muslims were the ‘two eyes of the beautiful Indian bride.’ But when addressing exclusively Muslim audiences, especially political meetings, he was militant enough to threaten civil war.”"

"Sir Sayyid was a prolific writer and was the first to use arguments from the canonical sources of Islam to prove that Indian Muslims were not fanatics who had waged religious war in his book entitled The Loyal Mohammadans of India."

"His image in the public mind today is almost wholly a result of this selective, this assiduous silence, reinforced now by governmental hagiographic propaganda. The propositions he injected into public discourse were the precise ones—in sequence, and word for word—which Jinnah picked up once he decided that is future lay in playing the communal card. The propositions are again and again picked up by leader. after leader who reckons that the way to national importance is by becoming the leader of one community, and the way to latter is the religion-in-danger shriek; as such leaders keep erupting — Bhindranwale one day, Shahabuddin the next—the reader will at once see the contemporary relevance of Sir Syed’s propositions."

"In his whole attitude is implicit the concept of Pakistan ."

"Another source of apprehension for the British was the Muslim concept of jihad with which the entire political atmosphere was filled from the very beginning of the 19th century. From Balakot, near Peshawar, to Bahadurpur in Bengal agitated religious thought was reeling round the obligation of waging jihad. The fatwa of Shah 'Abdul 'Aziz and the activities of the followers of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid, referred to as Wahhabis by the English writers, were enough to create fear and suspicions in British mind about the Muslims. Sayyid Ahmad Khan used all the force of his persuasive talent as well as his knowledge of Muslim law, to dispel this fear by proving that jihad was not justified against the British power in India."

"There is hardly any doubt that the net result of Syed Ahmad’s policy was to widen the cleavage between the two great communities in India, but perhaps it would be more correct to say that he was not so much anti-Hindu as pro-Muslim. He might well say, like the great Roman, Brutus, that it was not that he loved the Hindus less but that he loved the Muslims more. The one aim of his life was to promote the Muslim interests, come what may. (436)"