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 THE 
 
  MANOMMEDANS OF INDIA. 
 
 A Wecture 
 
 DELIVERED TO THE “LONDON ASSOCIATION IN AID OF SOCIAL 
 PROGRESS IN INDIA,” 
 
 At THE Society or Arts, JoHN Srreezr, ADELPHI, 
 Nov. 16, 1871, 
 
 BY 
 
 SYED AMEEFR ALI, M.A., LL.B., M.R.A.S., 
 
 STUDENT OF THE INNER TEMPLE, 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE ASSOCIATION. 
 1872. 
 
 cen eee eee SSS sesso 
 
EINE Gove ertis 
 
 TxE Council of the Association does not hold itself responsible for all 
 the opinions expressed in the Lectures and Papers which may be 
 published under its auspices. It simply seeks to give publicity to the 
 views of various gentlemen who are known to have studied the subjects 
 of which they treat, and whose views justly carry weight. 
 
THE MAHOMMEDANS OF INDIA. 
 
 I stand here to-night, not merely in performance of the duty I owe you 
 as a member of this Association, but also to fulfil in some respect a duty 
 I owe to my co-religionists at large, whose voice has been hitherto unheard 
 amongst you. 
 
 The delicate handling which the nature of the subject requires, com- 
 bined with the necessity of hurting as few susceptibilities as possible, 
 makes a discourse on the Mahommedans of India peculiarly difficult. 
 You will, therefore, I hope, make every allowance for my shortcomings. 
 In this discourse, I shall, in the first place, try to give you a brief sketch 
 of the early Mahommedans; and then rapidly passing in review before 
 you the various causes which led to the decadence of the Mahommedan 
 community under British rule, I shall state, in the second place, some of 
 the remedies required; I shall then explain the new movement for educa- 
 tion and social amelioration going on amongst us; and shall conclude with 
 an account of the social condition of our women. 
 
 But before I enter upon the real subject of the lecture, let me call your 
 attention to the vague application by English people of the term Mahom- 
 medan or Mussulman. Sometimes it is used to signify the faith or 
 religion of the Arabian prophet, and sometimes the people who profess 
 that faith in India. Such indiscriminate use of these terms gives rise to 
 great recklessness in talk as well as writing. I beg you to remember, that 
 throughout my discourse, by the terms Mussulman and Mahommedan, I 
 mean the nation, and the people, without any reference to. their creed ; 
 though religion is the national bond amongst them, just as among many 
 other nations, 
 
 From the description of Mahommedan historians—the best authorities on 
 the state of society in India at the time of their conquest—it would appear 
 that the condition of Hindostan about that period was as miserable as can 
 be conceived. The-old Vedic worship had lost its hold; Brahminism, 
 though successful in expelling Buddhism from India, could not recover its 
 old influence over the minds of its followers; all religious life had become 
 extinct, The various rajas were fighting among themselves; the rajah of 
 Punjab was often in need of assistance from his Mahommedan neighbours 
 against his Hindu rivals.* At such times, the Mussulmans could not 
 help observing the internal dissensions existing among the Hindoos, and the 
 richness of their country. Impelled by the love of conquest, which ani- 
 mates all nations without exception, they gradually advanced their outposts 
 
 * See the Habeeb-us-Siyar, 
 
4 
 
 in the Punjab, until one of their sovereigns established, after one decisive 
 battle, the Mahommedan dominion in the heart of Hindustan. 
 
 The conquest of India by the Mahommedans occasioned a most extra- 
 
 ordinary influence upon the relations of that country with the foreign world, 
 whom, under the generic name of yavans and malechas, she had kept shut 
 out from herself. The introduction of the Mussulman element broke up, 
 if not effectually, at least to an extent not before surpassed in history, a 
 state of society under which the old gradations of rank had by the process 
 of time acquired so inflexible and rigid a character that all hope of progress 
 from within had become a matter of impossibility. 
 _ Many Europeans are under the impression that the Mussulmans entered 
 India in hordes, like the Goths or the Huns in the Western World. One 
 example will sufficiently show the falsity of this notion. Bakhtyar Khilji 
 conquered Bengal with forty horsemen. A learned Bengalli gentleman, in 
 a lecture on “‘ Female Education in Bengal,” applied the terms mean and 
 cowardly to the Mahommedans ; but I do not see where the meanness or 
 cowardice lies, nor do I see the need of such hard expressions. It reminds 
 one of those African tribes who, so long as the monarch of the forest is 
 free,*call him by all endearing names, but the moment he is down the 
 endearment changes into abuse. 
 
 As soon as. the Mahommedans settled down after their conquest, the 
 tolerant spirit of their laws showed itself at once in their placing their 
 Hindu fellow-subjects on the same political footing with themselves. The 
 invidious capitation-tax imposed in the first flush of orthodoxy, in con- 
 sideration of the conquered race remaining subject to its own laws, was 
 abolished"in the second century of the empire. Every post of honour and 
 emolument, every dignity was open to the Hindus equally with the Ma- 
 hommedans. No distinction of race or creed was ever made. The Hindu 
 .. chiefs were equally entrusted with the commands of armies, and were 
 equally the counsellors of the sovereigns.* 
 
 Every single fact shows that, prior to the time of Aurungzebe, whose 
 reign saw the commencement of the decline of the Mogul Empire, a result 
 of his bigotry and narrow-mindedness, the Hindus were politically in no 
 way inferior to the Mahommedans, nor occupied a lower status. 
 
 On the death of Aurungzebe the magnificent fabric of the Mogul 
 Empire began crumbling to pieces ; and by the time of Mohammed Shah 
 it was a total wreck. Like the hundreds of vampires which in the Indian 
 story spring up with the fall of the master-magician, to ‘drag him down 
 into their regions, so the’ weakness of Aurungzebe’s successors raised 
 up a host of enemies on every side, with whom, on account of their 
 incapacity, they were unable to cope. The Mahratta marauders began 
 prundering up to the gates of Delhi; and though they received a terrible 
 
 low at Panipat, from the hands of the invincible Durrani, with his retreat 
 to the mountains they at once recommenced their system of plunder. India 
 became a scene of misery and misrule ; the various chieftains who had 
 started up in the provinces were fighting among themselves; the sovereign 
 was @ prisoner in his own capital. There was no order and no law. Take 
 a page from the last days of the Romani Empive, and instead of the pro- 
 consul and the Goths, read Indian-satraps and Mahrattas or Affghans, and 
 you will have an idea of the condition of the people. 
 
 Whilst the country was in this strait, the British, mere traders at first, — 
 presented theniselves in the garb of auxiliaries of one satrap against 
 another. Before lohg, however, for the future happiness of India, they 
 threw off this character, and appeared as the protectors of law and order in 
 Hindustan. In the miserable plight into which India had fallen after the 
 general disruption of the Mahommedan Empire, the appearance of a power 
 
 > Compare Davenport (Apology for Mohammed) p. 100—102, 
 
5 
 
 which could lay the demons of anarchy and misrule; which could curb the 
 marauding spirit of freebooters and plunderers brought forth by the times; 
 which could reunite into one homogeneous whole, the jarring elements 
 into which Indian society had broken up, and could become to India the 
 medium of intercommunication with the West—already monopolising the 
 leadership of thought—the appearance of such a power was providential. 
 It has been said in England that “the memories of past sovereigns in the 
 minds of Mussulmans are incompatible with their loyalty to the British 
 rule.” I for one do not see the logic of this reasoning. A Mahommedan 
 may have memories of past sovereigns, and yet fully appreciate the 
 blessings of peace and justice, law, and order—in fact, be perfectly loyal 
 and faithful to the British Government. 
 
 I have so far referred to the past to give you an idea of the present. 
 
 Among the Mahommedans inhabiting the different parts of India, the 
 same ethnical differences are observable as among the Hindus. 
 
 I do not know much of Southern India, and therefore confine my remarks 
 generally to the valley of the Ganges, comprehending Bengal proper and the 
 tableland of Hindustan. lie 
 
 In Northern India, the proviuce of Behar inclusive, the Mahommedans 
 are as a rule the descendants of the old settlers from the countries westward 
 of the Punjab, or of converts from the higher Hindu castes like the 
 Rajpoots, who, on their conversion, were designated Pathans, and into 
 whose fraternity they were admitted on account of a strong similarity in 
 traits of character and a congenial disposition. 
 
 The vernacular language of the Mussulmans in these parts is Urdu, or 
 Hindustani—a composite language like English, formed by the intermix- 
 ture of the various races brought together by the Mabommedan conquest, 
 and possessing within itself an expansiveness and elasticity hardly sur- 
 passed by any other language that 1 am aware of. From Punjab as far ~ 
 down as Bhagulpoor, in the Lieut.-Governorship of Bengal, Urdu, more or 
 less pure, is not only the vernacular of the Mahommedans, but also of the 
 majority of Hindus. ; 
 
 After Bhagulpoor commences the region of the Bengalli dialect. If a 
 straight line were drawn, dividing the district of Poorneah into two, from 
 north to south, and were then continued through the districts of Bhagul- 
 poor and Beerbhoom, it would roughly mark off the two regions. 
 
 Many Mahommedan families have settled, quite in recent times, from 
 the North-west and Behar in Bengal proper. These are called Hindustanis, 
 and few of them ever understand Bengalli. In most of the districts of 
 Upper Bengal, such as Beerbhoom, Midnapoor, Dinajpoor, Monghyr, Poor- 
 neah, and to some extent the English district of the twenty-four Pergunaahs, 
 the Mahommedans speak Urdu, though not with the same purity as a 
 native of Lucknow or Delhi, and know only enough of Bengalli for the 
 purposes of social intercourse with their Hindu neighbours. 
 
 Eastward, Urdu becomes merely the town Janguage of the Mahom- 
 medans, Bengalli being the vervacular of the rural Mussulmans, which 
 might to some extent be said of some parts of Upper Bengal. And so it 
 goes on dwindling in influence until at Jast, in the deltaic districts, it loses 
 all its vitality, the Mussulmans here speaking a patois of the Bengalli 
 dialect. 
 
 Urdu, however, as the language of the conquering nation, is understood 
 throughout India, at least wherever the Mahommedan power made itself 
 felt. [ gave you this sketch of the ethnological division of the Mussulmans 
 to make the following remarks more intelligible. . 
 
 From the time of the establishment of the British dominion until the 
 Governor-Generalship of Lord William Bentinck, the Mahommedans held 
 an equal rank with the other Indian races, Every department of State 
 service was open to and occupied by them along with the Hindus, Some 
 
6 
 
 of the Governor-Generals were warm patrons of Mussulman_ learning. 
 The memory of the Marquis of Wellesley and the Marquis of Hastings is 
 even now dear to the Mahommedan population. Up to the time of Lord 
 William Bentinck, Hindustani-Persian was the official language of the 
 Government. In introducing English as the State language of India, our 
 British rulers did not allow the Indian Mussulmans sufficient time to 
 prepare themselves for the sudden though inevitable change. 
 
 The Hindus, especially the Bengallis, being perhaps less conservative, 
 more ductile, or more in favour with the governing race, soon supplanted 
 the Mahommedans in almost every office in the Government employ.* 
 Under their own sovereigns the army was open to the Mussulmans. The 
 British Government excluded them from their proper vocation. Other 
 nations, in the dearth of any other occupation, have taken to commerce as 
 a last resource ; but the Mussulman aristocrat almost equals the German 
 junker in his contempt of trade. And even had he eschewed his pride, 
 commerce would hardly have furnished him with a calling, in the sense in 
 which the term is here understood. 
 
 Until the time of Lord William Bentinck, the whole system of education 
 throughout Bengal and Northern India was on a Mahommedan basis, and 
 those thus educated held the State patronage. In the meantime, a new 
 system of education was placed side by side with the old, and men began 
 to be trained up, who, belonging as they did to a different race, could adapt 
 themselves more easily to the new order of things. Suddenly the old 
 system was abolished, and those who had felt secure in a fool’s paradise soon 
 found themselves supplanted by men who had been specially trained 
 according to the new method. The Mussulmans would easily have fol- 
 lowed the example of their Hindu -compatriots, aud reconciled them- 
 selves to the altered state of circumstances. But our British rulers of 
 those days, whilst trying to impart to us, conjointly with the Hindus, a 
 knowledge of the arts and sciences of the West, failed to make adequate 
 provision for the simple elementary education of one of the most important 
 sections of their Indian subjects. The MHindoos from the beginning 
 had the sympathy of the English They had primary schools of their own 
 giving instruction in their own vernacular—a language as foreign to the 
 Mahommedan as Urdu is to the Bengalli. The teachers in these schools, 
 in the Lower Provinces, are, with rare exceptions, Hindus of Bengal ; their 
 Urdu is always confined to a few words picked up from De Rozario’s 
 Dictionary. Under these tircumstances the difficulty of the situation for 
 a Mahommedan may be easily imagined.t 
 
 The Makiabs and the Madrassas (scholastic establishments) which existed 
 among the Mahommedans till very lately (and some of which still exist), 
 could easily have been utilised for the purpose of primary education. The 
 Mahommedans would not then have been forced to attend institutions 
 where they are regarded as mere intruders. But our rulers, whilst fully 
 alive to the advantages of elementary education, through the vernacular, 
 for the Hindus, overlooked the very existence of those educational insti- 
 tutions among the Mahommedans. 
 
 In Eastern Bengal the vernacular language of the Mussulmans is, as 
 you have seen, closely related to Bengalli. Here then, at least, you will 
 say, they could have made use of the Hindoo institutions. But in their 
 case we meet with another difficulty, not altogether without influence in 
 Behar and Upper Bengal, but having a more powerful and decided influ- 
 ence here—a difficulty which owes its origin to the religious prejudices of 
 the people. 
 
 * This passage applies more to the early acquisitions of the E. I, Company like 
 Bengal, Behar, Orissa, and the provinces ceded by the Nawab Vizier. 
 
 + Compare Dr. Hunter’s work on the Mussulmans, 
 
; e i / 
 7 4 
 The circumstances which led to the conversion of the etn, Bin du 
 population of Eastern Bengal, who till then had professed | al Telaite 
 Brahminism on sufferance, made them the most zealous proselytes to the 
 religion of their new masters, who recognised no distinction of race or colour. 
 Far from the humanising influence of the Mogul Court—leading much the 
 life their fathers had led ten centuries before on those smal? hereditary 
 fields—the people of these parts have retained up to the present moment the 
 religious prejudices—the bigotry—of the old proselytising days—a bigotry 
 which is intensified tenfold by the agrarian feelings of the peasantry against 
 their Hindu middlemen and landlords.* The new system of education, 
 instead of delicately handling their prejudices and making them subser- 
 vient to the ends of civilisation, either completely ignored or contemned 
 them. These Eastern Mahommedans, though speaking a Bengalli patois, 
 are far from willing to accept instruction at the hands of a Bengalli. Be- 
 sides, they, along with other Mahommedans, consider some degree of 
 religious instruction as absolutely necessary for the proper performance of 
 the duties of private life. In European countries, religion and morality, 
 two convertible terms, are very often kept distinct from the domain of 
 law. But law is nothing more than morality legalised ; what you consider 
 right you make legal. But often in Europe, as perhaps often in the East, 
 what is right is not legal, and what is legal is not right. 
 
 Even in this country it is oftentimes found necessary to add religious 
 instruction to secular training. 
 
 Among the Mahommedans, more than any other people, their laws 
 embody their principles of morality, and are intimately wound up with the 
 everyday duties of their life, Every Mahommedan is required +6 know 
 something of those duties. In the absence of an established hierarchy like 
 that which the Jews and the Christians possess in common with the 
 Hindoos, all-pervading in its power, every Mahommedan is bound in his 
 person to know something more of his religion than can be acquired by 
 occasional visits to a place of worship. 
 
 It is not surprising if, influenced by such ideas, the Mussulman has 
 hitherto abstained from sending his children to institutions where, accord- 
 ing to him, they are not only exposed to the unhealthy atmosphere of the 
 companionship of polytheistical youths, but where they are also likely to 
 succumb to the insinuating influences of the rival-creed. 
 
 In Upper India, where Urdu is the language commonly spoken both by 
 Hindus and Mahommedans, and where the latter do ‘not labour under any 
 peculiar disadvantages,as they do in Bengal, another motive acts conjointly 
 with the religious motive as a deterrent principle—I mean the absence of 
 sufficient moral training. In India, in the Government schools and colleges, 
 the machinery employed for the instruction of youths is unrivaled ; but, 
 whilst a small proportion of the large number who take advantage of these 
 educational establishments receive a high mental and moral training, the 
 majority acquire only enough to inspire them with an overweening confi- 
 dence in themselves and a supercilious contempt for those who do not 
 happen to know the English language. It is not the contempt of know- 
 ledge towards ignorance : it is the contempt of shallowness for what it does 
 not understand. Both among Hindus and Mussulmans, those who have 
 thoroughly entered into the spirit of Western civilisation and Western 
 knowledge pay the greatest regard to the literature and civilisation of their 
 own ancestors. The majority of the English-educated youths, however, 
 remain satisfied with a small modicum of knowledge in the shape of English 
 composition and literature. Possessing no acquaintance with the nobler 
 
 * The Titu Myan riots, dignified by some people with the name of a religious 
 insurrection, were simply agrarian in their nature—though the ‘feelings of the 
 peasantry might have been aggravated by difference of creed. 
 
8 
 
 arts of Western civilisation, or of their own, their manners remain on a par 
 ‘with their knowledge. Their contempt for everything Indian shows itself 
 in the reckless disregard of the common ordinances of society. Their life 
 decomes a life of mimicry and imitation. The facile Hindoo, a philosopher 
 every inch of him, whilst regretting all this, does not feel the need of 
 renouncing.on that account any of the advantages. The old father, repre- 
 sentative of an old school, submits with the most praiseworthy philosophy 
 to the supercilious airs of his educated son, and permits himself to be 
 called hard names in the choicest English. There is no cutting off with a 
 shilling out there. 
 
 Butthe proud and sensitive Mahommedan, proud of his historiccivilisation 
 and historicrefinement, is shocked and disgusted atthis result of Western edu- 
 cation. In terror and fear, he keepsor takes away his sons from places where, 
 instead of learning the amenities of life under the vaunted auspices of English- 
 educated men, they even forget to pay a decent regard to the requirements 
 of good breeding. Askany Mahommedan from the North-west, or Behar, 
 why he does not allow his sons the benefits of English education ; he will 
 answer by pointing to its general results. Do not for one moment suppose 
 that I mean to reflect upon those gentlemen, Mahommedan or Hindoo, who 
 form the élite of the English-educated in our couutry, and who, from their 
 intellectual acquirements and high moral culture are, an honour to India. 
 I speak of the majority. Everybody cannot receive the highest training ; 
 mental acquirements must depend on circumstances ; the majority can have 
 but a partial education—something suited to their future prospects in life. 
 The fault is that they receive no moral training with their mental educa- 
 tion—a moral training, not on the basis of any particular religion or creed, 
 but on the broad foundations of genuine culture. 
 
 Again, throughout Upper India, Behar, and Western Bengal, a know- 
 ledge of Persian and Arabic is essential to every Mahommedan with the 
 least pretension to a liberal education. Persian, which may indeed be 
 regarded as the sweetest and softest language in the world, is throughout 
 Mahommedan India, and even among the Hindoos of Upper Hindustan, 
 the langnage of polite life ; its polished, flowing accents add to the charms 
 of a refined circle ; its enchanting poets, depreciated only by those who 
 cannot understand the life and beauty within them, are the delight of 
 every Mussulman home. Every gentleman carries on his correspondence 
 in Persian, and has in general to conform to Persian rules of etiquette. 
 
 Arabic, besides containing some of the proudest monuments of the . 
 human intellect on what are called profane subjects, is, as you know, the 
 sacred language of the Mussulmans. Almost the whole of their religious 
 literature is contained therein. Some knowledge of this language, too, 
 becomes requisite for a gentleman, to obtain for him a proper consideration 
 among his peers, Urdu is his native tongue, and every Mussulman is, 
 prima facie, bound to know it. Hence -you see the disadvantage under 
 which the Mahommedan labours in competing with the Hindu. In the 
 general absence of any provision in the Government schools for the study 
 of Mussulman learning in conjunction with English—the open sesame to 
 all the goods of life—he is obliged to spend some of the best years of his 
 youth in acquiring a knowledge of Persian and of Arabic. 
 
 The Hindu in general cares little for any other language but English. 
 The start he thus gets in beginning, enables him to keep his Mahommedan 
 competitor far behind him in the race of life, as is plainly exemplified in 
 the Indian Civil Service. There is not, to my knowledge, one Mahom- 
 medan among the many Indian gentlemen who have entered the 
 service, This is not the result of any innate superiority in the 
 Hindu, for where Mahommedans have had a fair chance they have 
 more than held their own. It is the natural result of the concentration of 
 
 _ the young and precocious Hindu mind on one subject, whilst the Mussul- 
 man 1s occupied with several. 
 
9 
 
 T have seen young men above twenty sitting side by side with young 
 Hindu boys, studying the English language. ‘The ludicrousness of this 
 sight deters many from entering schools, and J have known cases where 
 because above the limit of age, which in Bengal I believe is 16, they have 
 been refused admission.. You will realise the importance attached by 
 Mahommedans to a study of the Persian language by itself, when I tell 
 you that in the Hooghly College, out of some fifty boys, «who, in the 
 English classes had no means of learning Persian, twenty-four regularly 
 attended an extra class at an extra hour, when they were fagged after their 
 day’s work, and this of their own option. ' 
 
 These are decided evils, requiring decided remedies ; but of the remedies ~ 
 I shall speak later. I must now refer to some other circumstances which 
 have affected the prosperity of the Mussulmans, 
 
 The Mahommedan sovereigns and chieftains were, from the earliest 
 times, in the habit of bestowiag rent-free lands on individuals and 
 families, either in requital of distinguished services, or as grants for 
 charitable and pious uses. As long as the house of Taimur was powerful 
 enough to exact obedience to its laws; imperial confirmation was essentially 
 requisite to every grant, whether by the local landowners or by the 
 viceroys. But during the times of anarchy which followed the downfall 
 of the Mogul Empire, sannads used to be granted directly by the chieftains 
 themselves, and such sannads, or deeds of gift, were deemed to vest an 
 effectual and valid title in the grantees, The validity of these titles was 
 —if not openly, at least tacitly—acknowledged by the British Government 
 for about three-quarters of a century. But about and during the time of 
 Lord William Bentinck’s administration the Government was seized with a 
 desire to examine the title-deeds and sannads of every proprietor and 
 Jageerdar, and of every Wakf estate. The scene of confusion and terror 
 which ensued is well-described in the graphic pages of Mr, W. 
 Hunter, but the tale of woe should be heard from the lips of those who 
 suffered. Most of the sannads, with the imperial confirmations, were lost 
 by the silent inroads of time, or white ants, or destroyed by Mahratta 
 rapiue; but there was a prescriptive right to uphold all, sannad or no sannad. 
 The great famine of 1770 had impoverished thousands of .Mahommedan 
 families in common withthe Hindus. The Cornwallis settlement followed; 
 but it affected only those, who allowed their Hindu farmers to settle with 
 Government officers for the payment of the State revenue, and thus get 
 themselves enrolled as the real proprietors. 
 
 The Resumption proceedings, although intended to apply to both races, 
 fell heaviest on the Mussulmans. The Hindus, for the most part, had 
 recent titles, and were thus safe. But every Mahommedan family and 
 every Mahommadan endowment which failed to prove the sannads under 
 which they possessed proprietory rights, as gifts from the imperial court of 
 Delhi, were immediately ousted from their possessions. * 
 
 Hundreds of princely families who had enjoyed fiefs and estates and 
 jageers for years and years were thus completely beggared, or reduced 
 to penurious straits. Some of those who came out of the ordeal un- 
 scathed, were devoured by harpies in the shape of Hindu money-lenders, 
 Add to this, reckless hospitality-—in the spirit of the old Barmecide, 
 ostentatiousness in the manner of miJitary conquerors ; in fact, extrava- 
 gance of every sort, combined with the subdivision of property, and it will 
 be apparent why now one large landowner is found in places where half-a- 
 century ago there would have been fifty. 
 
 I have not said much about the Mahommedans of Oude, but the causes 
 which led to their decline in that province are too fresh to need 
 comment. 
 
 * See the short apologetic account of this measure in Meadows Taylor’s ‘‘ History 
 of India,” Even the Nawab Vizier’s grants were held invalid, 
 
10 
 
 Among the Mussulmans education is a primary principle of their Code, 
 It is incumbent on every Mahommedan to educate his children, male and 
 female, according to his means. Hence, at the first entry of the British and 
 for many subsequent years, India was covered with educational establish- 
 ments endowed by sovereigns or by private individuals, These institutions 
 - gave instruction in Mussulman learning, at one time the best the world 
 possessed ; and even now, if the patristic love which often encrusts it, could 
 be taken off, not lacking in depth, and force, and beauty ; not alone 
 sufficient for the exigencies of modern life, but yet necessary for the 
 formation of the national character. ] 
 
 Every gentleman of means and position formerly maintained one or 
 two tutors (as is sometimes the case still) ; this not only for the instruction 
 of the children of the house, but also for those who liked to avail them- 
 selves of their assistance. It is the bounden auty of every Mahommedan, 
 whatever his position, to give instruction to any man who comes to him. 
 If a man were to come to me and ask me to explain to him any book 
 within the scope of my knowledge, and were I to decline without any 
 sufficient reason, I should act in direct contravention of the Mussulman 
 law. Maktab-khanas, a sort of primary schools, were attached to every 
 mosque ; and J/adrassas, institutions of a higher class, were numerous. * 
 A wise Government, animated with a desire of justice towards all its 
 subjects, a desire of promoting the public weal and private happiness of 
 all its people, without distinction of race, creed, or colour, would at once 
 have seized on these ready-to-hand institutions, immediately purified them 
 of all their corruptions, and, whilst keeping up a shadow of their old 
 teaching, would have made them the vehicles of its own ideas and a grand 
 machinery for ruling the nation by the teachers of its youth ; it would have 
 struck at the core of all bigoted feelings (wherethere existed any) by enrolling 
 the sympathies and the interest of the ordinary moolla; it would have bound 
 up English with Mussulman learning ; and, in doing all this, would have 
 thrown the whole responsibility on those very Mahommedans, by 
 entrusting the management and supervision of these primary institutions 
 —say, under British guidance—to committees of men selected from 
 their race. 
 
 But the British Government was too busy at the time. Its action often 
 was more cruel than its indifference. The Inam Commission dealt a blow 
 to these indigenous institutions, from which they will never recover. Only 
 under the enlightened policy of our present high-minded Viceroy is it that 
 the Government is becoming aware of the mistake it then committed. 
 
 Whilst British officers were trying to utilise Hindoo Patshalas, whilst 
 they were trying to establish normal schools, and training schools, and 
 schools of all sorts for the Hindoos, they allowed the Mahommedan insti- 
 tutions to die off by the decline of their private supporters, or the resump- 
 tion of the endowments to which they appertained. Looking at these facts 
 can it be said that the Government of those days did not fail in its duty, 
 towards us ? 
 
 The truth is, that for the rough-and-ready way of civilising India which 
 was then in vogue, the Mahommedans were found to be rather an unmalle- 
 able material ; the stamping-out system which answered with the Hindus 
 did not succeed with the Mahommedans. They were therefore left to take 
 care of themselves. The nation which prizes independence of character so - 
 much in itself ought to have appreciated it in others, and seen the real 
 worth lying beneath the hard surface of the material. It ill becomes a 
 Teutonic race to place a pliant and flexible nature before one of which the 
 prominent characteristics are pride and sturdiness. 
 
 * Even at the time of Dr. Buchanan’s survey man of these Maktabs were existin 
 attached to religious endowments, 4 f . 
 
1 : . 
 
 The Christian missionaries, the first pioneers among the Hindus of 
 European learning—whose character as the disciples of the great Teacher 
 of Christianity ought to have preserved them from unworthy prejudices— 
 actuated by the rivalry of creeds, were the noisiest in the reprobation of 
 the Mahommedans and of Mahommedan institutions. They, who ought to 
 have helped us in keeping alive our old educational and scholastic establish- 
 ments as the germs of our regeneration, and the means of imparting 
 Western knowledge, were only too glad to see their decline. The legacy of 
 hatred bequeathed by the unholy wars of 600 years ago in Western Asia 
 still bears fruit in the European mind, 
 
 However, from some of the recent resolutions of the Government of 
 India, it appears that British officials are at last becoming alive to the 
 desirability of warding off the complete extinction of Mussulman learning 
 from among the Indian Mahommedans. And it is to be hoped that the 
 Government would immediately set itself to work in utilising the wrecks 
 of the old Mussulmanic educational establishments for purposes of primary 
 and preparatory education to the Mahommedans. 
 
 The Mahommedans themselves are awakening to the necessity of making 
 an effort to save their community from utter decadence. The Mussul- 
 mans of the North-west, as represented by their presiding genius, 
 Syed Ahmed Khan Bahadoor, are trying to find out the real causes 
 lying at the root of all the evils at present afflicting the Mahommedan 
 community. Prizes have been set apart for the best Urdu essays .on the 
 subject. 
 
 it Behar and Bengal also, the Mussulmans have become sensible of the 
 
 difficulties of the situation. In Calcutta and Behar—the two centres of 
 hought among the Mahommedans of these parts—the influential people 
 are not only willing and ready to assist Government in its work of ameliora- 
 tion among the Mussulman masses, but are themselves endeavouring to 
 improve the condition of the nation at large. The two Mahommedan 
 societies at these places have entered heart and soul into the work of 
 reform and improvement. In Upper India measures are being taken to 
 establish a cheap daily paper for the people to be sold at railway stations 
 by sweetmeat-sellers throughout the Urdu-speaking districts, from Bhagul- 
 poor, in Bengal, far up to the Punjab. This proposed newspaper, I am told, 
 is not intended to be the organ of any particular race, but rather of the 
 whole of the Urdu-speaking people, both Hindoo and Mahommedan. 
 
 The ‘‘ Mahommedan Social Reformer,” published at Allygarh, represents 
 to a great extent the new ideas which are in action among us. There is 
 every sign, there is every hope, that we have now reached the turning 
 point of the crisis in our social existence ; once safely through this stage, 
 we shall not be behind any nation in the march of progress. But the 
 present is the moment when assistance, direct and indirect, is most needed 
 from an impartial Government to enable us to renovate our national and 
 social life. In asking for and expecting so much, we do not mean that the 
 British should deal unfairly with any other of the subject races. The 
 British, in their capacity of peace-makers in India, can afford to be just and 
 fair towards all, We do not wish to see the Hindoos thrust out from all 
 educational institutions. We do not desire a monopoly of State patronage; 
 we do not wish that the Government schools and colleges should dispense 
 Mahommedan learning only, to the exclusion of Western knowledge and 
 literature ; we do not ask that the money taken from the Hindoos should 
 be spent on us. It would be unfortunate indeed if any Mahommedan 
 ever wished for all or any of these things. What we want is, that the 
 British in India should observe the strictest impartiality between the 
 various races of the Empire. 
 
 The October number of the “Cornhill Magazine,” in an anti-Mahomme- 
 dan article, said, “that our chief grievance lies in the policy of indifference 
 
12 
 
 and non-intervention which the British hold in their dealings with the 
 Indian races.” No Government can well be indifferent to the political, 
 social, or moral welfare of any section of its subjects, much less of a mighty 
 proportion, amounting at the lowest estimate to some thirty millions, It 
 may be indifferent to their religious customs, but not to their social or 
 moral concerns. And hence it is that the British Government has 
 established schools, more or less assisted by imperial aids, for the proper 
 education of its Hindoo subjects in Western learning and their own lan- 
 guage and literature. The Mahommedans want the same. We require 
 assistance in transforming our old scholastic establishments, wherever these 
 may be found existing, into primary and preparatory schools where the 
 English language will be taught in conjunction with our own, And when 
 necessary, we expect the same assistance in the formation of new ones ; 
 but where separate establishments are not needed, we require that Mussul- 
 ‘man teachers should be attached to the Hindoo institutions for instructing 
 Mussulman youths in their vernacular and Persian. We also require 
 training institutions for teachers speaking our own language, we require 
 that a fair proportion of the money we pay unto the State should be 
 applied towards our education and social amelioration. Above all, we 
 require the funds of Mahommedan endowments to be utilised for the 
 education of Mahommedans ; and when they enter the Government 
 schools and colleges we expect that they should be placed on an equal 
 footing ‘with their Hindoo fellow-subjects. At present the principle of 
 exclusion is so powerful, that while the representatives of other races make 
 use of Mahommedan endowments and enjoy Mahommedan scholarships, 
 the Mahommedans in the Calcutta Presidency College itself, I am told, are 
 debarred from holding a graduate scholarship. 
 
 The movement for Western education at present going on among the 
 majority of Indian Mahommedans is combined with a desire for cutting 
 off the excrescences which have gathered on their simple religious system 
 from ages of contact with the various races of the Empire. The Mussul- 
 mans, in the effort to elevate the subject nations, degraded themselves ; 
 they paid the penalty exacted by an avenging Nemesis, by adopting many 
 of the superstitious customs and observances of the Hindoos; most of the 
 Hindoo converts retained all their old associations, all their old habits of 
 thought, and handed them down to their descendants, like the Western 
 barbarians who continued to worship Odin and Freya under the names and 
 symbols of Christ and the Virgin. 
 
 The Mahommedans of India, as you are aware, are divided into two 
 great sects—the Soonnites and the Shiites ; these again are divided into 
 many sub-sections. The two principal sects differ from each other on 
 many doctrinal as well as historical points. But the feeling is universal 
 amongst educated Mahommedans, whether belonging to the one or the 
 other sect, that primary secular education should include some moral and 
 religious training, and that Islam, shaking off the mass of superstitions 
 which have become attached to it, should revert to its original purity. 
 In the present state of society among the Mahommedans themselves, the 
 practical application of the former principle is not unattended with 
 difficulties. But I may remark that the addition of a few chapters of the 
 Koran to the curriculum of studies (say, in the primary schools), with some 
 general ethical treatises, without any intermixture of sectarian or dogmatic 
 theology, would go far towards conciliating the religious prejudices of the 
 Mussulmans of all sects, 
 
 The idea of a reform is grand in its nature, and deserves the attention 
 and appreciation of the people whose forefathers originated the Teutonic 
 revolt in the Latin Church, As among the Christians, this phase of 
 thought in the Mussulman world to all appearances leads and will lead to 
 a rigid, uncompromising literalism in one direction, and a noble rationalism 
 in the other. 
 
13 
 
 Some recent occurrences, which, on account of their political character, I 
 am debarred from discussing here, have strengthened the old English 
 notion that Islam is a religion of aggression, and that, such being the case, 
 a Mabommedan renaissance must mean the manifestation of a principle of 
 war.* 
 
 More utterly mistaken ideas cannot exist. Every religion, in some 
 stage of its career, has been aggresive. Biassed as people are by the pre- 
 judices of thirteen centuries, it may surprise many to hear that Islam is 
 essentially a religion of peace. ‘To take one example. There is nothing in 
 Islam which is not compatible with the most absolute loyalty to a de facto 
 sovereign of whatever creed. Islam makes it the duty of every Moslem, 
 when once he has accepted the protection of a non-Mahommedan sovereign 
 —when once he has taken up the status of a Mustameen—to repay by 
 absolute loyalty the protection he enjoys ; he is bound to assist the sove- 
 reign against the public enemies, and to observe the municipal laws of the 
 State equally with them. It is only in cases of extreme religious persecu- 
 tion and civil ostracism that the Mussulmans are allowed to have recourse 
 to arms. If a Government were to prevent its Mahommedan subjects 
 from observing the ordinances of their religion ; or if it were to forbid 
 them to obey the call to prayer, or attendance at mosques; or were to 
 interfere with the quiet enjoyment of private rights and privileges accord- 
 ing to the Moslem code ; or if it allowed people ‘of other faiths to maltreat 
 Mahommedans whilst proceeding to their places of worship, or to insult 
 such places, &c., then—and even then only with a reasonable hope of 
 success -are they permitted to take up arms against the de facto Govern- 
 ment. But if there is no reasonable hope of success, the Moslems must 
 migrate. The Moriscoes of Spain furnish an example. They were richer 
 and wealthier than the Indian Mussulmang, and certainly not their inferior 
 in warlike prowess ; but when they found that the fanaticism of the bigot 
 of the Escurial and his minister made it difficult for them to live in Spain 
 in the due observance of their religious usages, they, instead of claiming 
 those rights, arms in hand, or trying to regain their supremacy, migrated in 
 a body to Africa, and Spain lost for ever her element of Vitality. 
 
 The Indian Mahommedans are in the full enjoyment of their religious 
 rights (though a few cases to the contrary have been known); their 
 mosques are open; no one interferes with their calls to prayer ; they 
 observe their religious ordinances without the least hindrance. What 
 incentive can they have to rise in arms or abet a conspiracy against the 
 British? If a Mussulman were to do so, he would act in direct contra- 
 vention of his religion. i4ee ; 
 
 As a social subject of the character under review is apt to be mis- 
 apprehended for a political matter, I must not enter into further details. 
 But I must claim your indulgence with regard to one point. A small, 
 uninfluential sect in Lower Bengal—recruited for the most part from the 
 ranks of common menial servants, butchers, boatmen, &c., and officered 
 by ill-read bigots, with no lawful careers in life under the British Govern- 
 ment—has brought itself of late years into the most unfortunate prominence. 
 The unanimous opinion of the respectable portion of the Mussulman 
 community, the authoritative dicta of four distinct bodies of Moslem 
 jurists,t have condemned the proceedings of this ill-starred body of zealots 
 as iniquitous and contrary to the laws of the Great Prophet. It is. most 
 
 unfortunate, and likely to lead to the most disastrous consequences, that 
 
 * I do not allude to the tragical fate of Chief Justice Norman, whatever pain and 
 sorrow I may feel at the loss of one who was not only a personal friend, but also one 
 of the best well-wishers of our community. An individual crime, abhorred by all 
 classes of people, has no connection with social or national questions. 
 
 + I allude to the late Fatewas, whose nature has been so much misunderstood by 
 the English people in general. 
 
14 
 
 the English should so far lose their sense of justice as to allow themselves 
 to be prejudiced against the whole nation, on account of the misdeeds of a 
 few individuals. Dissatisfaction with particular measures of Government 
 is very different from disaffection. Both phases of political feeling exist in 
 the very midst of you ; you can differentiate between the two. 
 
 I earnestly pray you, therefore, to deal with us more justly and fairly in 
 the uture ; you can scarcely imagine the pain one reckless word spoken by 
 Englishmen causes to that mass of loyal men whose staunch faithfulness — 
 has stood the test of more than a hundred years, and difficulties of no 
 uncommon magnitude, and whom, now, in a moment of panic, or under 
 the influence of unworthy passions, the English class together under the 
 head of malcontents and irreconcileables. 
 
 With regard to the status of woman among the Mahommedans, very 
 curious and entertaining notions are held in England. It is thought that 
 they are prisoners in dungeons ; it is thought that they are no better than 
 slaves ; that whenever the master of the house gets into a passion, he 
 invariably puts them into a sack and throws them into the sea (however, 
 as there is no sea in India, this must be meant metaphorically) ; it is 
 thought that without rights, without privileges, without education, they 
 drag on a miserable existence, unrelieved by a single ray of light. I 
 wonder what our ladies would say to all this ! 
 
 Women among the Mahommedans possess exactly the same privileges 
 and rights as the men; there is no law of “coverturé” and “merger” 
 among them ; marriage gives no right to the man which it does not give to 
 the woman. 
 
 Marriage among’ the Mahommedans is essentially a civil contract ; 
 acceptance and consent form the basis of a Mahommedan marriage ; and 
 though in India some Hindu ceremonies are gone through after the deed 
 of marriage has been drawn up and attested, the principle always remains 
 the same. The man is asked whether he accepts the woman as his wife ; 
 he answers in the affirmative ; the woman is asked whether she accepts 
 him as her husband ; she answers “ Yes ;” then follow the usual phrases 
 about honour and love. A deed is drawn up by a qualified person in 
 Mahommedan law and duly attested. 
 
 In Upper India and Behar, and among the Hindustani Mahommedans 
 in Bengal, men scarcely ever marry under twenty, women never under 
 fifteen or sixeen. But very often men are beyond thirty and women above 
 twenty before they think of marriage. Among the Bengalli Mahommedans 
 early marriages are rather frequent, in imitation of the Bengalli Hindus. 
 
 A Mahommedan wife among the lower classes is, from what I have seen 
 and heard in England, decidedly not less happy than a married woman 
 among the lower classes of the English. Among the upper classes, the 
 ladies, though they do not possess the culture and the luxuries of Paris 
 and of London, certainly do not lead the life you mark out for them in your 
 imagination. They rule despotically within their own homes. The hus- 
 band and the father have to bow to their authority, and though they do not 
 appear among men, their influence does not remain confined within the 
 four walls of the house ; it extends throughout the whole circle of their 
 husband’s or father’s acquaintances. 
 
 Invitations and presents are always sent to the lady of the house, and 
 are sent by the friend’s wife, or, in her absence, the eldest female relative, 
 Often, after the mother’s death, the eldest daughter, married or unmarried, 
 becomes the centre of home-life. The old English notion of women posess- 
 ing no souls according to the Moslem creed is, I believe, exploded by this 
 time ; but Westerns generally are still under the impression that Mahom- 
 medanism promotes polygamy, or, more properly speaking, polygyny. 
 Nothing better exemplifies the mischievous results of a want of proper 
 information, 
 
15 
 
 Among the pre-Islamite Arabs the.condition of woman was extremely 
 wretched and miserable. Polygamy prevailed to an extent simply in- 
 conceivable. There were no recognised laws of marriage. The general 
 licentiousness of manners in the surrounding countries about the Prophet’s 
 time was, beyond measure, frightful. The amelioration effected in the 
 condition of women by the Mahommedan laws is alone sufficient to stamp 
 Islam as one of the noblest institutions in the universe. By the laws of 
 the Prophet, a man can have four wives provided he can do “justice” 
 among them, that is, treat them with equal regard and affection ; other- 
 wise he shall have but one. This simple law, whilst providing for the 
 condition of society in those times, is an indirect but effective prohibition 
 of polygamy. In those days, and even now, the general absence of all 
 provision in Eastern countries, by which women are enabled to procure a 
 livelihood for themselves, served to make polygamy a principle of self- 
 preservation on their part. The law of the Prophet kept in view this fact, 
 whilst doing away with polygamy as an institution. In the present circum- 
 stances of the world-the prohibitory clause becomes the legal principle of 
 action. . 
 
 In India, it is only a few of the rich who can afford to have the luxury 
 of several establishments that have more wives than one. Polygamy, as 
 an institution, is fast disappearing under the new light in which the laws 
 of the Prophet are being read. The majority even now disapprove of it ; 
 and I may say, on the authority of the ‘“Mahommedan Social Reformer ” 
 of September last, that 95 Mahommedans out of every 100 are perfect 
 monogamists. 
 
 A Bengalli gentleman, in an address delivered at Birmingham, spoke of 
 us with much asperity. Referring to the result of the Mahommedan 
 conquest on Hindu women, he said (I quote his words as given in the 
 Association’s journal): “Their women, who had full liberty during the 
 ancient period, and had received education as in other civilised countries, 
 were deprived of their liberty, the men being obliged to keep their wives 
 and sisters for safety confined to the house.” If the Mahommedans had 
 ever been guilty of the deeds the Baboo insinuates, there was no lack of 
 men among the Hindus of the North-west, at any rate, to enact an Kastern 
 Sicilian Vespers. 
 
 I do not know, however, whether the Hindu women, prior to the Mahom- 
 medan conquest, used or not to come out in public. Possibly they might 
 have done this and more besides. But I once fell in with the translation 
 of a passage from Munnoo which goes directly against the assertions of 
 Bengalli gentlemen of the present day. It runs thus :—“ Women,” says 
 Munnoo, “ love their beds, their seats, their ornaments ; they have impure 
 appetites, they love wrath, they show weak flexibility and bad conduct. 
 Day. and night women must be kept in subjection.” * Munnoo, I must 
 remind those who have not heard of him, was not a Mahommedan ; he 
 was a good old Hindoo of the good olden times, when, if we are to 
 teliar Bengalli gentlemen, Hindu women used to be worshipped by their 
 ords, 
 
 _ However that might be, the Mahommedans distinctly deny the ques- 
 tionable honour of introducing what you call the Zenana system in India. 
 The Mahommedans had no knowledge of this custom till they entered 
 India. In all Mahommedan countries women appear in public, though 
 with veils ; in the Ealyats of Persia, in Kashgaria, in Turkish Bosnia, and 
 various other parts they even dispense with them.t ; 
 
 An explanation of the term zenana, and what is supposed to be its 
 
 * Tytler’s ‘‘ Considerations on the State of India,” vol. i., p. 237. 
 
 + Compare ‘‘Malcolm’s Sketches,” “Frontier Lands of the Christian and the 
 Turk,” ‘The Travels of Ibn-Batuta,” &c. 
 
16 
 
 Turkish equivalent, Harem, will further elucidate the subject. Zenana is 
 a Persian word, signifying women-folk, and, in its secondary acceptation, 
 anything or any place peculiarly belonging to women. The term Harem 
 is an Arabic word, and means a sacred place, interdicted to all vulgar 
 access ; and as ladies’ apartments are in our eyes sacred as any sanctuary or 
 shrine (and English ladies will, I am sure, appreciate this feeling) we 
 naturally style them Harem. Now, in these terms I do not see anything to 
 show that the Mahommedans introduced the custom of utter seclusion into 
 India ; perhaps they prove, on the contrary, that the Mussulmans intro- 
 duced a nobler conception of women among the nation whose gods took — 
 pride in degrading the sex. If the custom did not exist in India before 
 the Conquest, and if the Mahommedans did not adopt it from the Hindoos, 
 it must have resulted from the exclusiveness of the conquering race and 
 its wish to remain separate from the conquered. ‘The exclusive habits of 
 the English in India make the conduct of the Mahommedans intelligible. 
 The Austrians in Lombardy afford another example of this principle. Yet, 
 notwithstanding the baneful influences to which the Mussulmans were 
 exposed, they always allowed their women ampler privileges than exist now 
 in some parts of Europe. 
 
 The education of women is as obligatory upon Mahommedans as that of 
 men. And hence it is that from the time of Razia Begum, the daughter of 
 the second Affghan King of Delbi, down to her late Highness, Nawab 
 Secundra Begum, of Bhopal, and her noble and gifted daughter, there has 
 been no lack of ladies of talent and acquirements.* 
 
 The machinery of female education among us is interesting in more 
 respects than one. Among the better classes, it is customary to have one 
 or two Afoos, or governesses, in the house. 
 
 These Atoos are invariably well-born, belonging to old decayed families, 
 and obliged by circumstances to procure a-livelihood for themselves by 
 private teaching. They are, as a general rule, good Arabic and Persian 
 scholars. They not only teach the daughters of the house, but dispense 
 instruction to the girls of the neighbourhood gratis, and with the free per- 
 mission of the mistress. In Upper India, the course of study includes 
 higher branches of learning than in Behar and Upper Bengal ; in Arabic, 
 Tam informed, the ladies often going as far as the Hedaya, a profitless 
 work on jurisprudence. But the general curriculum in Persian includes 
 history, poetry, some ethical treatises, and a little arithmetic, and composi- 
 tion ; in Arabic, grammar, reading and construing partially the Koran. 
 In some places the course goes beyond this ; in others it falls short of it. 
 
 The education of the poorer classes is always confined to reading a few 
 chapters of the Koran, joined toa little Urdu. 
 
 Sewing, embroidery, and other branches of needlework, are considered 
 necessary accomplishments to a lady’s education; and among the upper 
 classes the daughters are, with rare exceptions, well-taught in these arts. 
 Here, again, the girls of the poorer neighbours receive the benetit of that 
 charity which Islam inculcates among its professors, and learn as much of 
 sewiny and needlework as the cares of a poor household would allow. 
 
 In Upper India and in some parts of Behar, music and also singing are 
 often taught; but these are not considered so requisite as ladies’ accom- 
 plishments as in Europe. A desire, however, for these ennobling arts is 
 spreading rapidly among the Mahommedans. 
 
 Another necessary point in a lady’s education is the superintendence of 
 the kitchen. You will recall to mind the story of the cream tarts in the 
 “Arabian Nights;” the fair Indian descendants of those Arab ladies have 
 
 * The daughter of the Prophet was one of the most accomplished ladies the world 
 has seen. In India, the daughters of Shah Jahan and of Aurungezebe were remark- 
 able for their pclitical abilities, 
 
Wi 
 
 not allowed the art of cookery to deteriorate. For myself, I consider the 
 cultivation of the gastronomic art one of the great tests of a nation’s pro- 
 gress ; and it might possibly be an advantage (socially speaking) if a 
 proper teaching of this branch of learning could be given to the Hindoos 
 of the Lower Provinces, who are behind every other civilised nation in this 
 respect. 
 
 English education, with but few exceptions, has made no way amongst 
 Mahommedan ladies. The creation of a desire is necessary to the proper 
 appreciation of any object; and the desire or taste is engendered 
 only by the want or need of that object. Our ladies do not as yet feel the 
 necessity of learning the English language or literature. English ladies in 
 no way interest themselves in their behalf; they do not visit them, they 
 
 do not care for them. What object, then, have our ladies in learning their 
 language? If they can live in their dignity, we can live in ours ; if they 
 will hedge themselves in their divinity, we have only to follow their 
 example, This is not my argument, this is the argument which our ladies 
 adduce. I would, on the contrary, have every Mussulman girl taught some 
 of the languages and literature of the West. 
 
 If English ladies had come forward and mixed with Mahommedan ladies, 
 if they had set down on their visiting lists the names of some respectable 
 Mussulman families, and had spared time to see and talk with their wives 
 and daughters, they would have done far more to accelerate the work of 
 social reform, to rivet the bonds of affection, than a whole mass of legisla- 
 tion. 
 
 _ These ladies would at first have found some difficulty in the want of com- 
 mon topics of conversation and in the difference of habits and tastes; but 
 before the novelty had worn off, all these difficulties would have been 
 smoothed by the creation of common subjects of interest. But English 
 ladies must not enter our families with the patronising tone and manner 
 which is considered the orthodox way of improving a people. They must 
 converse with our ladies just as they would with their country-women and 
 equals. There may be some difference in the minutiw of. etiquette ; 
 but in the natural ease and elegance of manners, in the frank simplicity 
 and unaffectedness which stamp a lady everywhere, they will not find our 
 . women inferior to many European nations. 
 
 It could be wished that English ladies in India would follow the example 
 of Madame MacMahon in Algeria, who, whilst studiously respecting the 
 Seen of Alverian ladies, tried to impart to them a knowledge of EKuro- 
 pean life,* ~ 
 
 Conversaziones, at which English, Mahommedan, and Hindoo ladies 
 could meet and exchange friendly courtesies, would not only bring the 
 English and the Mahommedan together, but would remove the race- 
 prejudices which the Bengalli Hindoo often entertains towards the 
 Mussulman, ; 
 
 Men must at present be excluded from such conversaziones; and though 
 this may appear unnecessary to English ladies, a sense cf duty in the cause 
 which their husbands, and fathers, and brothers profess to promote will 
 afford the motive; and something of the charm of simplicity, combined 
 with frankness, might make the meetings not altogether tedious and devoid 
 of interest. 
 
 Though there is no difficulty in English ladies visiting Mahommedan 
 adies, except such as exists on their own part, at first they will find it 
 decidedly difficult to persuade our ladies to visit them. But better 
 knowledge of each other would make them feel sure that they will be 
 secure from offensive intrusions during their calls. ; 
 
 In this way, English ladies would do incalculable good, the beneficial 
 
 * During the Marshal’s Governor-Generalship, 
 
1g 
 
 effects of which will not remain confined to one class ; it will gradually 
 make its way from the upper to the lower strata, and the whole mass of 
 society will be vivified with new life. 
 
 Mahommedan gentlemen have decided objections to allowing their 
 daughters to attend schools with girls of other races, often of the lowest 
 class ; and the lower classes of Mussulmans are deterred by motives of 
 creed and difference of language. Many gentlemen now wish to avail 
 themselves of English governesses, but are prevented by the difficulty in 
 obtaining them, fear as to any tampering with the religious ideas of their 
 daughters (a sort of feeling akin to what Protestants entertain towards 
 Roman Catholic governesses), and such like. The corresponding members 
 of ar Association might do well to try to set these matters in a proper 
 
 ight. 
 
 In the meantiue Government can give an extra impetus to the move- 
 ment for education now going on among the Mahommedans, by attaching 
 cheap primary girls’ schools for the poor classes of Mussulmans to the 
 existing endowments, as at Hooghly, Jessore, and other places in Bengal, 
 Behar, and the North-west. The Itimad-ud-Dowla Fund in Punjab—a 
 purely Mahommedan endowment—could be utilised forthe sameand cognate 
 purposes, a 
 
 I fear I have trespassed too long upon your attention, but the import- 
 ance of the subject would not admit of any curtailment. And though I 
 am aware I have neither treated it exhaustively nor in the way it really 
 deserved, and have, in one or two places, been obliged to go over the same 
 grounds as some English writers, I hope I have succeeded in throwing 
 some new light upon the social condition of the Mussulmans of India, and 
 I creating some interest in their favour among you. 
 
 But before I conclude, let me add that those who have really the good 
 of India at heart—alike Hindoo, Mahommedan, and English—should 
 forget their national prejudices and race-antagonisms in that one object. 
 
 “ United India” should be the watchword of future progress. 
 
 §. TAYLOR, PRINTER, GRAYSTOKE PLACE, FETTER LANE, LONDON, E, 6, 
 
ASSOCIATION 
 
 IN AID OF 
 
 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN INDIA. 
 
 Sen GM INe Ls GN EtG Ae INT C) ee 
 
 ESTABLISHED 1871. 
 
 Vice Presidents. 
 The LorD CAaLTHORPE. The Very Rev. The DEAN oF WESTMINSTER. 
 The Lorp Justice JAMES. 
 
 Council 18'71-2. 
 Chairman.—I. T. PricHarp, Esq., Barrister-at-Law. 
 
 Mrs. W. Akroyd. | Miss E. A, Manning. 
 Syed Ameer Ali. C. P. Lutchmepathy Naidoo Garoo, 
 James P, Allen, Esq. of Madras. 
 
 Major Evans Bell. Dadabhai Naoroji, Esq. 
 Rev. Stopford Brooke. D. Nasmith, Esq. 
 
 Rev. J. Baldwin Brown. Hodgson Pratt, Esq. 
 Mrs. Butler. Rev. Dr. Robbins. 
 
 Miss Cobbe. Baboo Rakhall Roy. 
 
 Miss Collet. Mrs. Schwabe. 
 
 W. R. Cooper, Esq. Miss Scott. 
 
 Rey. W. H. Fremantle. J. C, Addyes Scott, Esq. 
 Krishna D. Ghose. W. Shaen, Esq. 
 
 Rev. H. R. Haweis. | Dewan Kazi Shahabudin. 
 James Heywood, Esq. | Miss KE. Sharp. 
 
 Mrs. Hickson. Rev. Robert Spears. 
 James Hopgood, Esq. | §.S. Tayler, Esq. 
 
 Rev. Thos. Hunter. William Tayler, Esq. 
 Henry S. King, Esq. Dr. Underhill. 
 
 I. The object of this Association is to assist the movements towards social 
 improvement now taking place in India. 
 
 II. Although the social progress of two hundred millions of people is an 
 object of such vast dimensions that it may appear at first sight to be utterly 
 beyond the scope of any association of individuals to aid it, yet it must be 
 remembered that movements of this nature generally commence with isolated 
 efforts, widening by degrees till they embrace in their sphere of action whole 
 communities of people. 
 
 III. The Committee are in possession of evidence that such movements 
 have already begun, and that not from one, but from several indigenous 
 centres in different parts of India. These efforts are clearly capable of being 
 
20 
 materially assisted by the action of an Association like that for which they 
 now venture to solicit public support. | 
 
 IV. It would, however, be difficult to obtain. adequate support in aid of an 
 object of this kind without a more general knowledge than is commonly met 
 with in this country of the social condition of India, and of the attempts that 
 are being made there towards improvement. One of the main objects, there- 
 fore, of this Association will be to impart information by means of lectures, 
 conversaziones, correspondence, and intercourse with the natives of India, and 
 by the Journal of the Association.* 
 
 V. The objects of the Association, therefore, are the following :— 
 
 1, To impart information with the view of awakening general interest 
 in this country in the social condition of the people of India. 
 
 2. To assist the movements now’in progress in various parts of India 
 towards general social improvement, and especially at present 
 in respect to female education, the encouragement of schools of 
 arts and industry, and friendly intercourse between the English 
 and the Indian races; . 
 
 3. To obtain information from all parts of India where efforts are being 
 made in furtherance of any of these objects, by means of corre- 
 spondence with leaders of thought and with reformers who are at 
 present labouring, under enormous difficulties, in a field of unlimited 
 extent. 
 
 4, To encourage as much as possible natives of India to visit England, 
 and to assist those who do come to this country, by facilitating 
 their introduction to English families, and affording them the 
 means of becoming better acquainted, than‘ they otherwise could 
 be, with the domestic life of English people ; so that they may 
 acquire a taste for the habits and pursuits of refined society, and 
 have opportunities of studying to the best advantage English ideas, 
 institutions, and customs. 
 
 VI. As the main purport of the Association is to effect its objects by co- 
 operation and intercourse between people differing in race and creed, it is 
 obvious that, for all purposes coming within the scope of the Society’s 
 operations, the common ground of absolute neutrality, in regard to religion, is 
 the only position that can be occupied. 
 
 VII. One branch of the Association already exists at Bristol and another at 
 Edinburgh ; and it_is hoped that, in course of time, branches will be esta- 
 blished in other large cities. Se 
 
 VII. The subscription to the Association is Ten Shillings and upwards per 
 annum, which will entitle the Subscriber to all the privileges of membership. 
 Associate Members subscribing Five Shillings per annum will be entitled to 
 admission to lectures, the Monthly Journal, and other privileges, except the 
 right of voting. : 
 
 IX. The names of Subscribers, Donations, and Subscriptions, to be sent to 
 either of the Honorary Secretaries, Miss E. A. Mannina, 35, Blomfield-road, W., 
 or Rey. T. Hunter, 8, Queen-square, W.C. 
 
 ) 
 
 * The Journal is at present published monthly at Bristol, aud may be had on applica- 
 tion to Miss Carpenter, Red Lodge House, in that city, { ‘s ‘ 8 it