History

Interfaith Understanding  

  The Proposal, to establish a University Center for Interfaith Understanding, in the sacred memory of the great Indian, was considered and discussed in the meeting of the Sir Syed Bicentenary Organizing Committeeon 25 August 2015. The Committee decided to establish the Center as proposed. Accordingly a Press Release from the Public Relations Office of the University was issued on 27^th August 2015, which reads:

“The Aligarh Muslim University will establish a center for Inter faith understanding  in order to fulfill Sir Syed’s  dream of making the society more tolerant and liberal. The decision was taken in a meeting held under the chairmanship of the Vice Chancellor Lt. Gen. Zameer Uddin Shah in connection with the bicentennial birth anniversary of Sir Syed.”

When a great cause is pursued - the cause of making the nation a monolithic people, living in peace and harmony, understanding and respecting each other’s faith - all of us should rise to the occasion to forget about our personal likes and dislikes, suspicions and doubts, prides and prejudices.

One of the main pursuits of Sir Syed was to bring together the two distanced Communities nearer to each other, respecting each other’s tenets of Faith. For the purpose Syed wrote Tab’eenul kalaam, the first major work on comparative religion in post-1857 era. He felt the necessity in those days and rushed to do the needful. Today, we are faced with almost a similar situation of misunderstanding, resulting in a widespread intolerance, between the two major communities of India.

Bringing closer to each other meant, in Sir Syed’s Days, studying sympathetically the Bible and the Quran. It was considered in the fitness of things if on the memorable and eventful occasion of Sir Syed Bicentenary a Center for studying and thereby creating, interfaith understanding between the Indian Religions be established so that the dreams of the founding fathers of our great institution may become a reality. You might be remembering the historic Agenda unfurled by our great elders on the day the foundation stone of M.A.O. College was laid. It  inter alia reads:

The logic behind the proposal to establish such a Center was that in order to crush in the bud, the demon of communalism, there is no shortcut; only the long-term way is to adopt the Syed’s way. The Syed’s way remains with us : to educate the people, and let them understand that if India is to survive as a great Nation, it has to revive its grand old tradition: Live and Let Live.; to understand each other’s tenets of faith in sympathy and compassion, respecting each other  in the true spirit of Aligarh-the-Movement which once brought together Christians and Muslims, through the monumental Commentary of Sir Syed on the holy Bible alongwith parallels in the holy Quran. This was in post-1857 era. We are now 70 years old an independent nation.

Seventy years after, passing through the post-1947 era, if we have to live in peace and amity and   not in antagonism and animosity, there is no short cut to achieve the aim except to educate the two communities misunderstanding each other, on the lines adopted by Sir Syed in his own days, and followed by B.N. Pandey & the great Pandit Sunderlal  (the author of “Geeta aur Quran”), in our own days.

Trouble starts in the minds of men; if we hold the young minds aright, the so-educated men and women would be able to rescue the nation and save millions of lives and billions of money, destroyed during the communal riots which turn the overall growth and development of the nation anti-clockwise.

Now, the Task-ahead is a mission with our alma mater: to make it a torch-bearer for the entire nation. The journey is long. The struggle is hard but we have to give  a performance if we have to lead our people. And lead we must. And lead we can:

The detailed program of the Center may emerge in natural course of its working. Presently, however, we may start with:

              (i)Evolving the courses of studies in inter-faith understanding; (ii)Producing Help-literature: and (iii)Holding lectures and seminars on concerned subjects.

Your blessings are solicited for Realizing the dream!

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