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132 • THE ANNUAL OF URDU STUDIEStransmission of knowledge in print occurred, in part, thanks to personalitiesassociated with Delhi College directly or indirectly. Sir Sayyid AhmadKhan, the founder of Aligarh College, is sometimes erroneously namedamong the graduates of Delhi College, perhaps because his first schemefor Aligarh was patterned after the two sections, and the Urdu medium,of the Delhi institution. He did not study there but did collaborate withMaulavµ Im≥m Bakhsh, Persian teacher at the college, on a study of thetopography of Delhi, ¥¡≥ru ’Ω-¿an≥dµd, which remains a leading source onthe condition of the old city before much of it was destroyed during andafter the 1857 revolt. 35 Maul≥n≥ Maml∑k ‘Alµ N≥nautavµ, Arabic teacher atthe college, had among his students and descendants scholars who eventuallyfounded the madrasa at Deoband. 36 Delhi College was thus, in nosmall measure, the precursor of the two supposedly opposing centers ofIndo-Muslim cultural revival and reform in the late nineteenth century:Aligarh and Deoband.The role of the college in the literary life of the Mughal capital wassignificant. The relationship of Muftµ ¿adru ’d-Dµn ¥zurda to the localcollege committee has already been noted. The Muftµ took part inexamining advanced students in Urdu and Persian, and the more skilledamong them gained access to his literary salon. The college press and itspublications were respected in the city. Maulvµ Mu√ammad B≥qir, founderin 1836 of one of the first Urdu newspapers in Delhi, the Dehlµ Urd∑Akhb≥r, printed a number of the Vernacular Society’s translations in hispress and sent his son, Mu√ammad ƒusain ¥z≥d, to the college. 37 MohanLal Kashmiri, who studied surveying at the college and was one of its firstgraduates, accompanied Burnes to Bukhara and contributed to theaccounts of those explorations. Other graduates of the college includedMaulvµ Naÿµr A√mad (1833–1912), whose father sent him from Bijnor toDelhi to study traditional Islamic sciences. When Naÿµr A√mad wasoffered a stipend at Delhi College, his father agreed, on one condition:that he would not learn English. He did so only later in life, became aDeputy Collector in the British administration, and helped translate theCriminal Code into Urdu. He is best known as the author of numerous35 Christian W. Troll, “A Note on an Early Topographical Work of SayyidAhmad Khan: Asar al-Sanadid,” JRAS (1972), 135–46.36 Barbara Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India, pp. 74–5.37 MDK, pp. 159–79; David Lelyveld, Aligarh’s First Generation (Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1978), pp. 124–8.
GAIL MINAULT • 133didactic novels, some of the first works in that form in Urdu. His firstnovel, Mir≥tu ’l-‘Ar∑s (The Bride’s Mirror, 1869), written originally for theinstruction of his daughters, won a prize from the British Indian governmentas a “useful work of literature in the vernacular.” 38 Another earlygraduate was Py≥r® L≥l “¥shåb,” known both as an Urdu poet and authorof the ethnography, Rus∑m-e Hind. 39Mu√ammad ƒusain ¥z≥d (1830–1910), the originator of literary criticismin Urdu, was another graduate of Delhi College. His father, MaulvµMu√ammad B≥qir, mentioned above as the proprietor of the Dehlµ Urd∑Akhb≥r, later supported the 1857 revolt and was executed by the British.Mu√ammad ƒusain ¥z≥d had worked for his father’s newspaper and fledDelhi after the revolt. He was later able to join government service in thePunjab and there wrote his major work, ¥b-e ƒay≥t, a history of Urdu literature.His judgments on the literature of the past bear the stamp of hiseducation, and his loss. As a great prose stylist, he often misjudged or disparagedthe poetic muse of others, although when evaluating poets, hetended to glorify the poets of Delhi over all others. He served as theSecretary of the Anjuman-e Panj≥b, a literary and educational reform associationin Lahore. Together with W.R.M. Holroyd, the Director ofPublic Instruction in the Punjab in the 1870s, and Alπ≥f ƒusain ƒ≥lµ,another Urdu poet with ties to Delhi, ¥z≥d helped institute a series ofmush≥‘iras in Lahore that promoted a new style of poetry, more topicaland “natural” (according to English standards of the day) than the lyricalghazal. 40Yet another well-known graduate of Delhi College was Maulvµ Ÿak≥u’l-L≥h (1832–1911), scion of a family that had served as tutors to theMughal dynasty. Ÿak≥u ’l-L≥h taught mathematics and wrote prodigiously38 Iftikh≥r A√mad ¿iddµqµ, Maulvµ Naÿµr A√mad Dehlavµ: A√v≥l-o-¥¡≥r(Lahore: Majlis-e Taraqqµ-e Adab, 1971); C.M. Naim, “Prize-Winning Adab,” inBarbara Metcalf, ed., Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in SouthAsian Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 290–314.39 Py≥r® L≥l ¥shåb Dehlavµ, Rus∑m-e Hind (1868; rpt. Lahore: Majlis-eTaraqqµ-e Adab, 1961).40 C.M. Naim, “Mughal and British Patronage of Urdu Poetry: A Comparison,”in The Powers of Art: Patronage in Indian Culture, ed. Barbara S. Miller(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 259–76; for a discussion of ¥z≥d andƒ≥lµ’s literary criticism and the changing canons of taste, see Frances Pritchett,Nets of Awareness: Urdu Poetry and its Critics (Berkeley: University of CaliforniaPress, 1994), especially. pt. 3.
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