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People: Julia the Elder
Topic: Aligarh Movement
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Aligarh Movement

Years: 1875 - 1947

The Aligarh Movement, a socioreligious movement in British India, aimed to establish a modern system of Western-style scientific education for the Muslim population during the later decades of the 19th century The movement's name derives from the fact that its core and origins lay in the city of Aligarh in Central India and, in particular, with the foundation of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. The founder of the oriental college, and the other educational institutions that developed from it, was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. He became the leading light of the wider Aligarh Movement.

The education reform established a base, and an impetus, for the wider Movement: a Pakistani Muslim renaissance that had profound implications for the religion, the politics, the culture and society of the Indian subcontinent.

"History should be taught as the rise of civilization, and not as the history of this nation or that. It should be taught from the point of view of mankind as a whole, and not with undue emphasis on one's own country. Children should learn that every country has committed crimes and that most crimes were blunders. They should learn how mass hysteria can drive a whole nation into folly and into persecution of the few who are not swept away by the prevailing madness."

—Bertrand Russell, On Education (1926)