Effects of Contemporary Western Thought on the Seerat Nigāri of Sir Sayyed

سر سید کی سیرت نگاری پر معاصر مغربی فکر کے اثرات

Abstract

Sir Sayyed took the same meaning from the term nature as the scientists of the nineteenth century had taken from it. Actually, Sir Sayyed's naturalism was the heritage of the evolution of Mu'tazilah , which included Nizām and other Muslim theoretical thinkers, Al-Jāḥiz and Ibn Tufail. In modern Islām, Sir Syed is the first person who experienced the effects of Darwinian evolution and tried to find a version that could harmonize Darwin's theory and Islāmic beliefs of creation and human nature. The Qur'ān states that the law of evolution is seen to work in the relationship of one species to another. The imaginary metaphor of semen or seed, which is referred to as the nucleus of life, refers to the initial movement of life that emerges from internal matter. The literal reference that Allah has given in the chapter of the creation of the universe in the Holy Qur'ān and the Old Testament has been given with reference to the general belief for the sake of argument. Since it is very important for the inspired book to reach and address the common people, it is revealed in the form of their store of knowledge, their understanding and their folk tales and in a form of expression that is comprehensible to them. So, the story of Adam is metaphorical and Adam is a manifestation of human nature. The method adopted by Sir Syed to write the history of Islām around 1870 was partly scientific and partly theoretical and apologetic and he also adopted the same method for writing the biography of the Prophet. In this regard, he was the starting point of modern Islāmic historiography in India. He wrote biographical thesis in English on the life of Prophet Muḥammad (PBUH) with the title “Essays on the life of Muḥammad”, and he also published Urdu essays with title Khutbāt-e-Aḥmadia. He studied the manuscripts of London's India Office Library and the British Museum and collected biographies and rare commentaries, all with the aim of invalidating Sir William Peacock's Life of Muḥammad. The Aḥmadiyya sermons presented a distinct style of modern Muslim apologists, which was completely different in terms of technique and dialectic from the Jewish and Christian apologists of the West.