Hostel Legacy: Hali (Deen Mohd.)

Quick Sketch 

Name: Maulana Khwaja Altaf Husain Hali 

Birth: 1837 in Panipat, Haryana 

Death: 30th September 1914 in Panipat, Haryana 

Services: Social Reformer, Writer and Poet. 

Auto-Biography: Hayat-e-Hali 

Teacher: Mirza Asadullah Khan Ghalib 

Other Anthologies: 

-Musaddas e-Madd o-Jazr e-Islam (Musaddas-e-Hali)
-Hayat-Javed, is the biography of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
-Yadgar-e-Ghalib (Biography of Mirza Ghalib)
-Heyat-e-Saadi (Biography of Sheikh Saadi)
-Muqaddama-e-Sher-o-Shayari

Hali got basic education at home in fields of Urdu, Persian and Arabic. Penury and indigence didn’t permit him to attend any school in childhood. He developed a complete dexterity in Nazm, Rubai and Marsia. In Musaddas-e-Hali, he examines the state of social and moral degradation prevalent in the erstwhile contemporary Muslim society. His prose treatise, Muqaddama-e-Shair-o-Shairi, is a pioneering work of literary criticism. In mid 1870s, he began to compose his epic poem, the Musaddas e-Madd o-Jazr e-Islam (An elegiac poem on the Ebb and Tide of Islam), at the request of Sir Syed under the new pseudonym of Hali ("The Contemporary"). Musaddas e-madd o-Jazr e-Islam describes the rise and fall of the Islamic empire in the sub-continent. As he puts it:

Pasti Ka Koi Hadd Se Guzarna Dekhe
Islam Ka Gir Kar Na Ubharna Dekhe
Maane Na Kabhi Ke Madd Hai Har Jazar Ke Baad
Darya Ka Hamare Jo Utarna Dekhe

Till his last breath, served the Aligarh movement with rapt enthusiasm and belongingness. He wanted to bring permanent changes in prevailing condition of Indian Muslims. Unlike Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, his modus operandi was to revive Classical Islam, its glorious, vigourful and potential history. He did not hinge upon Western renaissance, for, he held that renaissance is within Islam.

About women, he wrote optimistically. In his novel Majalis-un Nisan (Gathering of Women), Zubaida Khatun, the main character has been found multifaceted when she learns concomitantly a host of disciplines like Quranic Studies, Arabic, Persian, Urdu, Mathematics, History and Geography.

He departed on 30th September 1914 in Panipat leaving his task incomplete and visions unfulfilled. Spark of Muslim renaissance, incepted by this mighty soul still survives in Aligarh Muslim University. The institution has Hali Hostel and Hali Road after his name in and nearby Mohsin-ul-Mulk Hall respectively. 

*Deen Mohd. is a student of M.A. (Arabic) at Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh.