A Moral Reckoning Muslim Intellectuals in Nineteenth-Century Delhi

This book, the first of its kind, illumines the little-known world of men of letters through the speeches and writings of five significant and influential figures in nineteenth-century Delhi: Mohammad Zakaullah, the historian; Nazir Ahmad, Urdu’s first novelist; Sayyid Ahmad Khan, the great Aligarh reformer; Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib, Urdu’s greatest poet; and Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali, the versatile poet-writer. This unique volume show cases their lives, values, and responses to the changes around them including the onset of colonial rule, the 1857 Rebellion, and, above all, the impact of their thinking and activism on their contemporaries.

Based on a wide range of primary and secondary literature in Urdu and English, this book will interest a wide cross-section of scholars, students, and researchers of modern Indian history, literature, Islamic studies and comparative religion, particularly those concerned with Muslim intellectual life in north India.

‘… [This volume] invites us to enter the world of the 19th –century Muslim intellectuals of Delhi… “Delhi Renaissance”… comes to vibrant life in this book.’ —Biblio 

‘… interesting and thought provoking reconsideration … a novel enterprise’ —The Statesman