Book review: On Ghalib and culture —by Khaled Ahmed

Most people think Muzaffar Ali Syed was the most learned man in Pakistan. Among the living, Muhammad Ali Siddiqi or Ariel of Dawn is undoubtedly the most learned man. He holds his own compared with the late Syed who created waves more often by being controversial. Not that Siddiqi is non-controversial. His assessments of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and Allama Iqbal have been heretical but have escaped attention because his scholarship is unassailable and we generally don’t like reading controversial things if they are deeply scholarly. If you can’t face a critic, ignore him.

In this book, Siddiqi, or Ariel as he was known when he wrote in Dawn a column on culture for a quarter of a century, has dealt brilliantly with Ghalib and that most difficult theme in Pakistan, culture. The first topic is about whether Ghalib was pro-East India Company or a hidden revolutionary. His Dastanbu tract, written clearly to please the British administrators of Delhi, has been variously interpreted. Some think he wrote it from the heart and hence his praise was sincere though exaggerated. Others think he did that as a device to get the British to resume his pension and bring evidence from his letters to say that he was in fact a ‘nationalist’....


Book review: On Ghalib and culture —by Khaled Ahmed

Idraak;

Essays by Dr Muhammad Ali Siddiqi;
Fazli Sons Urdu Bazar Karachi 2007;
Pp240; Price Rs 200