a center of philosophy, science, the arts, and a place where the Qu‘ra ̄n and
philosophy were apparently reconciled under H.anafı ̄ scholarship. Ahmad
Kha ̄n also saw Egypt and Turkey as nations where modernization was
successfully occurring in his own time. Accordingly, Kha ̄n argued that
Muslims needed the British and vice versa. Education in the arts and sciences
would help Muslims compete; further, he argued, Islam was not incom-
patible with other forms of knowledge insofar as Alla ̄h is the source of all
truth and nature is the work of Alla ̄h. Muslims and Hindus should be able
to get along, as both were the products of migration centuries before, though
now both groups were indigenous to the subcontinent. India was like a
beautiful bride, with two eyes, one Hindu, one Muslim.^40
Kha ̄n’s attempts at reconciliation led to the founding of Alı ̄garh College
where both the “Western” sciences and Islam were taught and where the
Alı ̄garh movement was spawned. The movement did inspire a number
of Muslims to take advantage of Western forms of education, and led to the
founding of colleges in various parts of India where Muslims could study the
sciences. Yet Ahmad Kha ̄n’s “modernism” either spawned other reactions,
or developed alongside some that were more conservative.
One of these developments was the founding of Deoband Madrasa
(Seminary) in 1867, which sought to re-establish contact between the Muslim
middle classes and classical Islam. Its theological positions were decidedly
orthodox; indeed, the school received some visibility in recent years as
a major source of Islamic education for the advisers to militants in Pakistan
and Afghanistan’s Talibans. Other conservative reactions included the
work of Sayyid Amin(1840–1928) who developed an apologetic on behalf
of Islam, and Nawwab SaddiqandHassan Khan, who, while writing in Urdu ̄,
led a movement known as ahli-h.adı ̄thwherein innovation was condemned as
being contrary to the sunna.^41
In the meanwhile, there were also other responses: Nu’mani, for example,
founded a school in Lucknow in 1894, which contributed to Indo-Islamic
studies and published more “liberal” scholarship. Pietism was yet another
response.Hali(1837–1914), for example, a Su ̄fı ̄ poet and saint, continued
the tradition of Su ̄fı ̄ mystical poetry expressed in the Urdu ̄g
̄
h
̄azalwherein
religion is internalized. There was, in addition, even the creation of a new
Islamic sect. It was founded by one Mirza Ghulani Ahmadof Qadiyan
(1839–1908), who proclaimed himself both the Messiah and the Mahdı ̄ (who
was the expected “redeemer” at the end of history). He was presented as an
incarnation of both Kr.s.n.a and Christ. His followers came to be known as the
Ahmadiyah movement, which sought to defend Islam against the polemics
of the A ̄rya Sama ̄ j and Christian missionaries while co-opting elements from
both religious traditions. They maintained, for example, that Jesus had come
to India and was buried in Kashmı ̄r.^42
182 Streams from the “West” and their Aftermath