Review Of Atif Syed’s ‘Aligarh: A City That Outlasted Empires’

Aligarh, a city in western Uttar Pradesh, widely known for its idiosyncratic affiliations to Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) founded by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan as a bastion of Muslim modernity, remains historically unexamined. The backdrop of Aligarh’s culture, popularly known as tehzeeb, can be traced back to the corridors of this university. Over time, this monolithic understanding of the city’s historical and socio-cultural affiliation with the university crystallised, overshadowing a far older, curious and more syncretic past.

Atif Syed’s Aligarh: A City that Outlasted Empires (Hachette/John Murray India) adds substantial insight to the lost biography of this region. Syed, a historian and lifelong Aligarh resident, sets out to rescue his city from this single, suffocating identity and provide us with a panoramic view of Aligarh across nearly a millennium.

The book opens with the deeply embedded cultural myths and prehistory of Koil or Kol, the name the settlement bore before it was Aligarh. Syed starts tracing its history from the Mahabharata onwards extending to the Dor Rajputs who held it. The book follows the arrivals that reshaped the town: Qutbuddin Aibak's conquest and the transformation that came with the Delhi Sultanate, the Mughal centuries, the turbulent years of European intervention, and finally the founding of AMU in the aftermath of the 1857 uprising.

The chronological spine is familiar, but Syed's intent is not to list dynasties. Beside the rulers, he places the townspeople who adapted to situations in a highly strategic manner, capitalising on the geographical location of Aligarh. His focus rarely misses prominent local figures or revered sufi patronages of the area, such as the death of Shah Jamal Shamsul Arfin in Qutbuddin Aibak’s conquest of the city.

Syed’s quick instinct to link structural similarities between distinct power dynamics in the rule of various dynasties separated by centuries shows how these links become decisive for locating the city’s cultural-historical attributes in contemporary times. Syed's account grows most vivid in the 18th and 19th centuries, when Aligarh became a prize fought over by successive powers and "the Marathas, British, Afghans, and even French forces successively gained control over the city". This is the era that gives the book its flavour of cosmopolitan absurdity. Syed highlights French military men who wrote poetry in Urdu, a detail that captures the region's genuinely hybrid culture better than any textbook chronology.

The author also thoroughly explores Aligarh's built environment, examining the symbolism and deeper significance of its prominent architectural landmarks. He offers an in-depth analysis of the Jama Masjid and the Koil Minar, reflecting wistfully on the lost minaret, which, had it survived, would still be visible from miles away.

Beyond its architectural history, the book delves into the origin stories behind the names of towns across Aligarh, including Shah Jamal, Dodhpur and Dhorra Mafi. Drawing on historical records and insights from scholars such as Irfan Habib, Syed reconstructs these local place names while simultaneously tracing the roots of prominent regional lineages, including the Sherwanis.

Yet, the book’s final anchor remains the 19th century and the monumental establishment of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, which Syed treats in a culminating tone rather than as a starting point while talking about the city. Drawing heavily on the fascinating history of the institution's founding, Syed offers a deep-dive into the mind of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, who deliberately sought a location devoid of the distractions of major urban centres like Allahabad or Agra.

Aligarh offered an impeccable balance: it remained deeply connected to the cultural and political arteries of Delhi and the broader Northwestern Provinces, yet, was deliberately isolated enough to shelter students from the political turbulence and worldly distractions of major urban centres. The city later became a centre for various intellectual activities, including the struggle for freedom against the colonial government in India using the distinct mobilisation power of the students in the city.

The author's own background adds a layer of undeniable authority to the text. Raised in Aligarh and now based in Texas as a computer engineer, Syed brings an insider’s profound, lifelong passion for his hometown, coupled with an expatriate’s objective, analytical distance. He presents his highly readable prose with a treasure trove of rare photographs, neglected documents, manuscripts and forgotten texts, consciously expanding his scholarly purview beyond the university campus to include the city's ancient temples, venerable mosques, forgotten tombs and crumbling forts.

This book is a triumph of narrative history. It avoids the dry, academic plodding that often plagues local histories, offering instead a vibrant, richly layered portrait of a city continuously in flux. For those who view Aligarh and its complex culture solely through the majestic gates of its historic university, Syed’s book is an essential, eye-opening read that reveals a past far richer than conventional historical accounts have ever accepted.

(Mohammad Azim is a graduate from Aligarh Muslim University. His interests lie in the intersections of political philosophy and history)