\nAllama Tafazzul Husain Kashmiri was born to an influential Kashmiri family in Sialkot in 1727. His grandfather, Karamullah, was a great scholar of his time and served as a minister under Mir Mannu, governor of Lahore. At the age of 13, his father moved to Delhi, where he studied basic logic and philosophy under Mulla Wajih, a student of the eminent Sunni scholar Mulla Nizam-ud-Din. He learned Mathematics from Mirza Muhammad Ali. At the age of 18, his family moved to Lucknow where he joined the seminary of Firangi Mahal. Soon he developed doubts about the teachings of Sunni Islam and mystical philosophy and moved out of the seminary, and started to research on his own. He then converted to Shia Islam. [1] At that time mysticism was rampant and pseudo-scientific ideas of Mulla Sadra were taught in Firangi Mahal. [2] The venom of tassawuf had killed the spirit of scientific inquiry in Muslim society. In such an environment, Allama Tafazzul set out to learn and translate state of the art books of science and modern astronomy. Historian of science, Simon Schaffer, writes:
\n\u201cBorn in northern Sialkot in the year of Newton\u2019s death, Tafazzul belonged to an eminent family who were converts to Shi\u2019ism and close to the fading Mughal court. He studied logic, mathematics and natural philosophy in the imperial capital at Delhi, then moved to Awadh in 1745, where he rose rapidly in favour with the Naw\u0101b Shuj\u0101\u2019u\u2018d-Dawla. Tafazzul enrolled in Lucknow at the celebrated college at Firang\u012b Ma\u1e25al, a former Dutch trader\u2019s house taken over in the name of the emperor Aurangzeb in 1693 for the cultivation of a neoteric curriculum developed by the learned Niz\u0101m-ud d\u012bn Sahalv\u012b, where material from the rationalist tradition of Greco-Arabic texts was taught to candidates for courtly and administrative responsibilities. The college\u2019s training was valued within both Mughal and British systems of erudition and government. Urban notables such as Tafazzul\u2019s clan politically exploited the resources of Indo-Persian literary and natural philosophical culture and the rationalist sciences he studied in Delhi and Lucknow. Immersion in classical logic and mathematics, including Islamic commentaries on Euclid and Ptolemy, was combined with mastery of administrative and civil law.\u201d [3]\n
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Scholarly Career<\/strong> These included canonical texts of eighteenth-century mathematics and rational mechanics, such as the 1769 Mechanics of the eccentric Wearside mathematician William Emerson, a work that offered its students a reliable version of Galilean kinematics and rational analysis. Tafazzul also studied the Treatise of algebra (1745) by Thomas Simpson, the mathematics professor at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich, and a 1707 treatise on conic sections by the French mathematical analyst Guillaume de l\u2019H\u00f4pital.\u201d [4] Science had flourished in the 18th century Europe due to public discussions in coffee houses, pubs, shops, fairs and other public places. By the end of eighteenth century CE, Calcutta had become a major center of cultural exchange where several scientific works, like James Ferguson\u2019s \u201cIntroduction to Electricity\u201d, Tiberius Cavallo\u2019s \u201cA Complete Treatise on Electricity\u201d and his \u201cEssay on Theory and Practice of Medical Electricity\u201d, George Adams\u2019s \u201cEssays on Electricity\u201d, Thomas Beddoes\u2019s \u201cFactitious Airs\u201d, Jean-Antoine Chaptal\u2019s \u201cChemistry\u201d and scholarly journals like the \u201cPhilosophical Magazine\u201d, were in circulation. The members of The Asiatic Society, founded by William Jones in 1784, held discussions on philosophy. [5]\n Works<\/strong> Collaboration with James Dinwiddie<\/strong> He believed that without mathematically described knowledge, one could not go beyond a schoolboy\u2019s understanding of science. [5] Allama Tafazzul Husain Kashmiri had already translated Newton\u2019s \u201cPrincipia\u201d into Arabic in 1789. After Dinwiddie started teaching in Calcutta, in October 24, 1794, the old Allama enrolled himself as a student. Dinwiddie first taught him Optics and then modern geometry. To his surprise, Tafazzul was struggling with mathematics. He rermarked: Opposition from Orthodoxy<\/strong> Death<\/strong> References<\/strong> 7.\u00a0Mushirul Hasan, \u201cResistance and Acquiescence in North India: Muslim Response to the West\u201d, Rivista Degli Studi Orientali, Vol. 67, Fasc. 1\/2, pp. 83-105, (1993)<\/a>. Allama Tafazzul Hussain Khan Kashmiri (1727 \u2013 1801), also known as Khan-e-Allama, was a Twelver Shia scholar, scientist, and theologian of North India. He is famous for his Arabic translation of Sir Isaac Newton\u2019s Principia. Early Life and Education Allama Tafazzul Husain Kashmiri was born to an influential Kashmiri family in Sialkot in 1727. His …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"yoast_head":"\n
\nNawab Shuja ud Daula appointed him tutor to his son Saadat Ali Khan in Allahabad. There the then young Syed Dildar Ali Naqvi, who later came to be known as Ghufran Maab, became his student. In the time of Nawab Asif ud Daula, Allama Kashmiri was appointed as an ambassador to the court of governor general of East India Company at Calcutta. There he learnt Greek, Latin and English and started to translate scientific works of European scientists into Arabic to bridge the gap between the scientific revolution and the Muslim and Indian educational institutions.[1] Simon Schaffer describes:
\n\u201cTafazzul would reportedly spend his mornings on commentaries on Islamic tradition and philosophy and in teaching mathematics; dine with British colleagues; then in the afternoon and evening expound on his expertise in the contrasting schools of Islamic law. To improve his command of the Company\u2019s language, he read a \u2018history of England\u2019 but \u2018I have since given it up.\u2019 His former colleague William Blane, now physician in Lucknow, acted as a go-between: Blane told Anderson that Tafazzul \u2018generally spends an hour or two with me every other day in reading English books \u2026 those on Astronomy he is most fond of \u2026 you may send him a few books in that science or in the higher branches of Mathematics.\u2019 The vak\u012bl started work on more challenging and rewarding materials, mainly obtained via Burrow and his friends.<\/p>\n
\nHe authored the following: [1] 1. Commentary on Conica of Appollonus.
\n2. Two treatise on Algebra.
\n3. Commentary on Conica of Diophantus.
\n4. Translation of Sir Isaac Newton\u2019s Principia.
\n5. A book on Physics.
\n6. A book on Western Astronomy.
\nSimon Schaffer writes:
\n\u201cThe ambition to translate Newton was certainly remarkable. By the time of Tafazzul\u2019s arrival in Calcutta there had been but one English (Andrew Motte, 1729) and one French (Marquise de Ch\u00e2telet, 1759) translation of Newton\u2019s Latin treatise. The project seems to have begun in mid-1789 and continued for some time with Reuben Burrow\u2019s encouragement. In September 1789 William Jones told William Palmer, by then British representative at Sindhia\u2019s camp, that \u2018his friend\u2019 Tafazzul was planning an Arabic version of Newton. Reports of progress with the work were sent by Tafazzul to Anderson and by Burrow to Shore. Burrow proposed accompanying the translation with his own notes. He reported to the Asiatic Society in November 1790 that \u2018the small time I had to spare \u2026 has been employed in writing a comment on the works of Newton, and explaining them to a very ingenious native [i.e. Tafazzul], who is translating them into Arabic.\u2019 For Tafazzul this was a development of his program to master and incorporate the resources of British rational astronomy. His Shi\u2019ite colleagues explained the intimate relationship between the development of this astronomy and the importance of public and courtly patronage of learning: they saw an important link between the pursuit of such sciences and the status of learned elites within administration and government.\u201d [6] Some of these books were taught in Shia seminaries in the nineteenth century Lucknow. [1] His successor, Saadat Ali Khan, founded an observatory in Lucknow, but he died soon after. Nawab Ghaziuddin Haider and Nawab Nasiruddin Haider patronized modern scientific learning. [7]\n
\nIn 1792, Scottish science communicator James Dinwiddie, tried his luck in China but failed to impress the Emperor. Faced with financial crisis, in 1794 he migrated to Calcutta in the hopes of better prospects, and started a series of lectures on natural science and staged demonstrations of scientific phenomena. He also offered private tuitions on mathematics, astronomy and geometry.[5] He believed that without mathematical reasoning one could not dig deeper in knowledge. He said:
\n\u201cOnly in those parts of the science which have been mathematically considered, that natural philosophy can boast of having carried on her investigations with certainty, success and utility.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\u201cIt is somewhat irregular that a man who reads so much theory should be so totally ignorant of practical mathematics.\u201d [8] Allama was also burdened with the job of ambassador of Awadh, and he had to discontinue the tuitions. Back in Lucknow, the nawab was unhappy and called him \u2018servant of the English\u2019, for becoming too occupied with learning and translation of modern scientific knowledge. [9] In November 1795, he resumed and this time Dinwiddie taught him experimental astronomy. James Dinwiddie notes in his diary: \u201cMuch jarring between the Nabob and Tafazzul Husain \u2013 the N told him he must not consider himself as his (the N\u2019s) servant but the servant of the English.\u201d [10] The exchange was mutual, as Tafazzul also informed Dinwiddie on Indian and Arabic astronomy. [5]\n
\nFamous theologian of the time, Shah Abdul Aziz, son of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, declared him an apostate. [11]\n
\nIn 1799, he suffered a brain hemorrhage which left his body in a state of paralysis. He died travelling from Banaras to Lucknow on 3rd of March 1801. Mirza Abu Talib Khan wrote the following elegy upon receiving the news of his death while in London:
\n\u201cAlas! The zest of Learning\u2019s cup is gone;
\nWhose taste ne\u2019er cloy\u2019d, tho\u2019 deep the draughts;
\nWhose flavor yet upon the palate hangs
\nNectareous, nor Reason\u2019s thirst assuag\u2019d
\nBut yes; \u2013 rent is the garment of the morn;
\nAnd all dishevell\u2019d floats the hair of night;
\nAll bath\u2019d in tears of dew the stars look down
\nWith mournful eyes, in lamentation deep;
\nFor he, their sage belov\u2019d, is dead; who first
\nTo Islam\u2019s followers explain\u2019d their laws,
\nTheir distances, their orbits, and their times,
\nAs great Copernicus once half divin\u2019d,
\nAnd greater Newton proved; but, useless now,
\nTheir work we turn with idle hand, and scan
\nWith vacant eye, our own first master gone.\u201d [11]\n
\n1.\u00a0Rizvi, \u201cA Socio-Intellectual History of Isna Ashari Shi\u2019is in India\u201d, Vol. 2, pp. 227\u2013228, Ma\u2019rifat Publishing House, Canberra, Australia (1986).<\/a>
\n2.\u00a0Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi, \u201cPhilosophy of Mulla Sadra and its Influence on India\u201d, Religion in Indian History, pp.177\u2013186, New Delhi (2007).<\/a>
\n3. Simon Schaffer, \u201cThe Asiatic Enlightenments of British Astronomy\u201d, in: \u201cThe Brokered World: Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770\u20131820\u201d, p. 53, Watson Publishing International LLC, (2009).
\n4. Simon Schaffer, \u201cThe Asiatic Enlightenments of British Astronomy\u201d, in: \u201cThe Brokered World: Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770\u20131820\u201d, p. 57, Watson Publishing International LLC, (2009).
\n5.\u00a0Savithri Preetha Nair, \u201cBungallee House set on fire by Galvanism: Natural and Experimental Philosophy as Public Science in a Colonial Metropolis (1794\u20131806)\u201d; In: The Circulation of Knowledge Between Britain, India and China; pp. 45\u201374, Brill, (2013).<\/a>
\n6. Simon Schaffer, \u201cThe Asiatic Enlightenments of British Astronomy\u201d, in: \u201cThe Brokered World: Go-Betweens and Global Intelligence, 1770\u20131820\u201d, pp. 60-61, Watson Publishing International LLC, (2009).<\/p>\n
\n8.\u00a0Savithri Preetha Nair, \u201cBungallee House set on fire by Galvanism: Natural and Experimental Philosophy as Public Science in a Colonial Metropolis (1794\u20131806)\u201d; In: The Circulation of Knowledge Between Britain, India and China; p. 67, Brill, (2013).<\/a>
\n9.\u00a0Savithri Preetha Nair, \u201cBungallee House set on fire by Galvanism: Natural and Experimental Philosophy as Public Science in a Colonial Metropolis (1794\u20131806)\u201d; In: The Circulation of Knowledge Between Britain, India and China; p. 69, Brill, (2013).<\/a>
\n10.\u00a0Dinwiddie Journal B 39 \u2013 13 May 1797, Dalhousie Library Archives.<\/a>
\n11.\u00a0Rizvi, \u201cA Socio-Intellectual History of Isna Ashari Shi\u2019is in India\u201d, Vol. 2, p. 229, Ma\u2019rifat Publishing House, Canberra, Australia (1986).<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"