born Oct. 17, 1817, Delhi
died March 27, 1898, Aligarh, India
Indian educator and jurist.
Born into a family of officials in the Mughal dynasty , he worked for the British East India Co. and held various judicial posts. He supported the British in the 1857 Indian Mutiny but criticized their errors in his influential pamphlet Causes of the Indian Revolt . His other works include Essays on the Life of Mohammed (1870) and commentaries on the Bible and Qurān . He founded schools at Muradabad and Ghazipur, established the Scientific Society, sought to strengthen the Muslim community through the reform journal Tahdhib al-Akhlaq , and was active in founding a Muslim college, the Anglo-Mohammedan Oriental College, in 1877 at Aligarh.