“WHEN a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford,” Samuel Johnson is quoted as saying by his biographer James Boswell.

The word had got about far and wide, it seems, and London was held in high esteem in the subcontinent, too. Going to London was something big in the subcontinent till nineteenth century (it still is, perhaps) as it was the capital of the foreign power that had overpowered the region. The stories about England’s unusual splendour and cultural characteristics abounded. Akbar Allahabadi, Urdu’s foremost humour poet, had satirised in his usual style those who wished to see the ‘promised land’:

Sidhaaren sheikh Ka’abe ko, ham inglistaan dekhen ge

Wo dekhen ghar khuda ka, ham khuda ki shaan dekhen ge

(Let the preacher visit the Ka’aba, we will visit England

Let him see the house of God, we will rather see the glory of God)

Some writers of Urdu have recorded impressions of their travel to England. Musafiraan-i-London is the title used on two books. The first one, penned by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, gave the account of his journey to London that he took up in 1869. It bolstered the latent desire in Moulvi Samiullah Khan to visit London. He travelled to England in 1880 and emulated Sir Syed in other ways as well: he too wrote a travel account and used the same title as did Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.

Moulvi Samiullah Khan (1834-1908) is among those persons to whom history has been unkind. Both his travel account and his invaluable services to Aligarh Movement have almost been forgotten. Out of four research dissertations on Urdu travelogues only one has mentioned Samiullah Khan and his travel account Musafiraan-i-London, to say nothing of the common readers and students! And history books too seem to refer to Samiullah Khan’s name and his services only cursorily, if at all.

Samiullah Khan was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s right-hand man and was the one who organised at his residence, despite Sir Syed Ahmed Khan’s reluctance, the first meeting of the committee that was formed to launch the Aligarh School. Sir Syed wanted to wait till enough funds were generated to sustain the scheme, but Samiullah Khan arranged the first-ever classes at his house and admitted Hameedullah Khan, his son, as the first student of Aligarh School. Thus began on May 24, 1875, the school which was later to become a college and ultimately Aligarh Muslim University.

On Jan 8, 1877, the foundation-stone laying ceremony of Aligarh College was held. Both Sir Syed and Samiullah Khan went to the ground before the Fajr prayers and on Sir Syed’s insistence Samiullah Khan laid the first stone of the foundation of the building. That stone was, in fact, a landmark in the history of the subcontinent. When Sir Syed established Muhammad Educational Confere­nce in 1886, its president was none other than Samiullah Khan. Earlier, he had worked with him for Scientific Society with the same dedication.

Samiullah Khan left Aligarh for England on April 16, 1880, and returned to Bombay (now Mumbai) on Oct 12, the same year. He began sending to Aligarh Institute Gazette the account of his travel and its first episode appeared in the issue of the Gazette published in Aug 31, 1880 . The last piece appeared in the Gazette’s issue of Dec 7, 1880.

Prof Dr Asgher Abbas, the former head of Aligarh Muslim University’s Urdu and Persian departments, dug up all the episodes as well as the relevant pieces — such as Sir Syed’s letter, Samiullah Khan’s letters and the letters sent to the editor, which had published in the gazette — and compiled and annotated them. He also wrote a compact intro on Samiullah Khan and his travel. The result was an all-important and extremely useful book. Published from India under the title Musafiraan-i-London, its authorised Pakistani edition has just been published by Karachi’s Idara-i-Yadgar-i-Ghalib.

In addition to other works, Prof Asgher Abbas has carried out and published meticulous research work on Sir Syed and his institutions, such as Sir Syed ka safarnama musafiraan-i-London, Sir Syed ki sahafat, Syed Ahmed Khan, Sir Syed ki scientific society, Sir Syed ki taziyeti tehreeren and Intikhab-i-mazameen-i-Aligarh Institute Gazette.

Some of the observations of Samiullah Khan are very interesting and they not only reflect the London of the 1880, but also what the visitors from the subcontinent felt and what made them wonder.

Asgher Abbas in his intro says that Samiullah Khan was a disciple of Moulvi Mamlook Ali and Mufti Sadruddin Azurda, the two renowned scholars from Delhi. Samiullah Khan was a scholar himself in true sense of the word. He was well-versed in Arabic and Persian, too. He says that “the distinct feature of this travelogue is not only that it lets us know of the feelings of a man who helped shaped our history, but it also tells us about the deep sense a nationalistic sympathy and moral values. Secondly, Moulvi Samiullah Khan has described in a straight forward way whatever he observed, without mincing his words. The writer is not stupefied by the West and his eyes are not dazzled by the glitter of the West. ... In those days a lot of courage was needed to criticise the Englishmen. The travelogue shows the glimpse of the pride in the eastern values that was displayed by Iqabl in the days to come”.

drraufparekh@yahoo.com

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2016