Syed Ahmad was a great admirer of the progressive tendencies discernible among the Bengalis and the Parsees, but he sincerely, though mistakenly, con cluded " that their pace is so fast that there is danger of their falling." But he certainly showed signs of being an ideal reformer when he gave vent to his pent-up conviction " that the fatal shroud of com placent self-esteem is wrapt round the Muhammadan community." Another shrewd remark which bore evidence of intellectual penetration related to the secret of Britain's progressive traditions as consisting in scientific and literary works being written in her own language. And in India, he preached season in and season out that philosophic and literary treatises should be translated in the vernaculars of the country as only thus could the ideas be made popular and the language made richer. The Syed was by instincts and temperament, a statesman and could well grasp fundamentals, ignoring details for the moment.
He watched the movements of his English friends in London, met distinguished people in social inter course, entered into the spirit of their conversations and drank deep at the fountain of Western ideas. The idea that held his mind as if in a vice was thus epigrammatically expressed by him : " Unless the education of the masses is pushed on as it is here, it is impossible for a nation to become civilised and honoured." And this idea, which only gained ayague and inchoate expression in Syed Ahmad's utterance, later fired the imagination of a highly-disciplined politician like Gokhale, and acquired a forceful expression through his Education Bill, which failed to pass through the Council, but indirectly revo lutionised the attitude of government and people alike to the overmastering need for mass education.
Syed Ahmad had a keen eye for the so-called trivial incidents of everyday occurrence. When his land lady's daughter asked for the loan of one of his books on highly controversial religious topics, at a time when she was rather indisposed, the Syed was very much impressed that a lady should, even during a season of sickness, think of acquiring knowledge and of training her mind. " Is it not a matter for astonishment that a woman, when ill, should read with the object of improving her mind ? Have you ever seen such a custom in India, in the family of any noble, Nawab, Raja, or man of high family ? " Even the manners and deportment of his chamber maid aroused in him feelings of disappointment over the backward condition of women then prevailing elsewhere. During his stay in England he formed strong personal friendships and had, ever afterwards, delightful reminiscences of having met the older aristocracy, officials and even the philosopher of Chelsea—Thomas Carlyle. The last-named was
specially honoured by Syed Ahmad because of his bold presentation of the greatness of Muhammad.
On his return to India, and indeed long before, he was obsessed by the idea that he must find and collect funds for a college which might do the same service for Muslim young men as the premier univer sities of Oxford and Cambridge were doing for the youth of England. He had visited these institu tions, had had long and profoundly interesting talks with Dons and Professors. But instead of the impressions being dissipated in idle curiosity or excitement, they deepened and struck roots in his mind till the conviction came that a new experiment of a similar nature was urgently needed in India, and that he was the man on whom the burden of responsibility should fall, since it was he on whose mind the idea originally dawned with such force.
A few loyal friends supported Syed Ahmad, when he expressed his intention to educate the youth of the country. But the forces of conservatism arrayed themselves against him. He was roundly condemned as one seeking to uproot the Muslim tradition, a perverse intriguer seeking alliance with the Infidels, as a " lieutenant of the evil one " who did not believe in the story of Adam and Eve, who discarded belief in the tradition that attributes to Muhammad the cutting of the moon in two and passage through the milky way. The learned Mullahs from Mecca and Medina fulminated their fatawahs (i.e., decrees) against him, putting him without the pale of ortho doxy and branding him as a heretic with whom the faithful should on no account have any dealings. Even attempts at taking his life were threatened. But nothing daunted the Syed fought on with the forces of reaction by gentle exposition, moral suasion and sheer force of character. And he won the day.
Among contributors to the college fund were Hindus and Muhammadans, Government officials, and English friends. Among prominent Indians may be mentioned Sir Saar Jung and Raja Shimbu Narain. Syed Ahmad showed consummate tact and capacity for work, in the matter of collecting friends.
But prior to the establishment of the college, Syed Ahmad and his lieutenants were anxious to ascertain the feelings of the community and to gauge their requirements. So the provisional committee invited some prize essays on why the Muhammadans were educationally so backward. Among reasons assigned in the most thoughtful essays were : r. The general disinclination of well-to-do parents to let their children associate with boys of humbler birth, and the apathy and lethargy of children brought up in comfortable homes where standards of discipline were not high.