Syed Ghulam Bhik Nairang

Syed Ghulam Bhik Nairang.

14 February, 1885

Syed Zafarul Hasan (February 14, 1885 – June 19, 1949) was a prominent twentieth-century Muslim Philosopher.

Biography

Syed Zafarul Hasan was the eldest son of Khan Sahib Syed Diwan Mohammad.

Syed Zafarul Hasan was educated at Allahabad (M.A., LL. B.) and obtained doctorates from the universities of Erlangen and Heidelberg, Germany, and Oxford University.

Dr Zafarul Hasan was the first Muslim Scholar of the Indian sub-continent to secure a PhD from Oxford in Philosophy. His doctoral thesis Realism is a classic on the subject. Prominent philosophers and educationists lauded his work, among them, his teacher Prof. John Alaxander Smith (1863–1930).

He started teaching at the Muslim University, Aligarh, India in 1911. In 1913, he became professor of philosophy at Islamia College, Peshawar. From 1924 to 1945 he was professor of philosophy at the Muslim University, Aligarh – where he also served as Chairman of the Department of Philosophy and Dean of the Faculty of Arts. There, in 1939, he put forward the ‘Aligarh Scheme‘ along with Dr Afzaal Hussain Qadri. They published a scheme (“The Problem of Indian Muslims”) proposing three independent States.

From 1945 until the partition of the sub-continent, Dr Hasan was Emeritus Professor at Aligarh. In August 1947, he migrated to Lahore, Pakistan. He started work on a book that he could not complete due to his death in 1949. Only one volume (“PHILOSOPHY – A Critique”) was ready, which was published from Lahore by Institute of Islamic Culture in 1988.

He received honours and served on a number of bodies: Member of Court, Member of Executive Council, Finance Co., Com. of Advanced Studies, Aligarh Muslim Univ.; Dir., Jamiat-ut-Tamaddunil-Islami, Bombay; Member, International Academy of Philosophy, Erlangen. Pres., Islami Jamaat, Aligarh. Member: Education Committee, All-India Muslim League; Kant Gesellscaft (Germany); Mind Assn. (England); Philosophical Congress (India); Academic Council of Muslim Univ. at Aligarh.

(Left to Right):

Dr Zafarul Hasan, with Mr Doppler and Mr Zahir (probably in Germany).

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Works

• Realism – An Attempt To Trace Its Origin And Development In Its Chief Representatives (Cambridge University Press, London, 1928)
• Realism (translated into Urdu), 1927
• Monismus Spinozas, 1922
• Descartes’ Dualism, 1912
• Philosophy and Education, 1927
• Philosophy and Its Advantages, 1931
• Realism is not Metaphysics, 1931
• Islamics, 1936
• The Problem, 1933
• Revelation and Apostle, 1937
• Message of Iqbal, 1938
• Philosophy of Religion
• Philosophy of Islam
• Philosophy of Kant
• PHILOSOPHY – A Critique (Institute of Islamic Culture, Lahore, 1988)

His Thesis in German Language is ther in the University of Erlangen, Germany.

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Sources

* WORLD BIOGRAPHY, Fourth Edition of the BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE WORLD

[INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN BIOGRAPHY, (Incorporated in 1934),

296 Broadway NEW YORK 7, N.Y.], page 2183).