India, Nov. 15 -- In the twenty-first century, two events in the life of Aligarh Muslim University stand out: the Supreme Court judgment reaffirming its status as a minority institution, and the publication of Sir Syed: A Private Life, the English translation of Sir Syed Daroon-i Khana by Iftikhar Alam Khan. A book that contains almost everything essential to understanding the life of the founder of AMU, this translation makes available valuable material that might have remained inaccessible to scholars at a time when Urdu has become alien to the elite and when most historians rely solely on translations, many of which are not accurate.

Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898) remains one of the most consequential figures of nineteenth-century In...