266 Islam and Modernity
societies. At the same time, though, they were all at least wary of the colonial
occupiers. Some were more vociferously critical than others. This second cri-
tique led them to an affi rmation of the particular Islamic culture to which they
belonged. Often, the two critical movements contradicted each other. The
universalism that they promoted in the fi rst movement was undermined by
the particularism of the second movement. Matching this double critique was
the dilemma of Islamic reformism. I will illustrate this critique in some detail
through the work of Sayyid Ahmad Khan.
Sayyid Ahmad Khan (1817–98) was a leading modernist thinker in British
colonial India who articulated a universal interpretation of Islam, on the one
hand, and made a clear case for the specially protected place of Muslims, on the
other. After the Indian Revolt of 1857, he was one of the few Muslim leaders to
advocate support for the British. In the context of a Hindu majority, he was of the
opinion that the British monarchy could guarantee the survival and modernisa-
tion of Muslim communities. Until his death in 1898, he held tightly to a loyalist
approach to the British colonial presence in India, and encouraged Muslims to
take advantage of the new trends in science and education. He left a legacy in
politics and education that fl ourished in the Indian subcontinent and beyond.
Khan wrote widely on many topics, and his understanding of Islam as a
natural system is a fundamental principle of his modernist approach. He argued
that a new theology was needed in the nineteenth century to prevent educated
Muslims from losing faith in their religion. This was a critical challenge to
Muslims in general, and religious scholars in particular. He was convinced
that Islam needed to be justifi ed anew on the basis of reason and experimental
observation. He argued the need for continuous revision and the indispensable
role of rational vigilance:
Yet, surely, when the style of philosophy changes, the principles of debate
change, and there arises the need for new argument. For this reason the argu-
ments formerly set up by our elders have lost their relevance in our time. (quoted
in Troll 1978: 325)
Only if reason is used constantly can the error of the reason of one person be
corrected by the reason of a second person and the reasonings of one period by
the reasonings of a second. (ibid.: 255)And it comes as no surprise to know that he found reason and Islam in complete
harmony with each other: ‘when I found Islam to be in full correspondence with
reason I became even more convinced and certain that Islam is true and this
doctrine (that reason has nothing to do with faith and religion) wrong’ (Troll
1978: 257).
Khan was drawing on the rational approaches to Islam in the past, but
insisted that the new experimental sciences posed new challenges. Keeping in
mind the success and promise of science in the nineteenth century, he added