Syed Syed may refer to: * Seyd, alternative for Sayyid (name) * Alternative for Sayyid, an honorific title * Ahsan Ali Syed (born 1973), Indian businessman * Ghulam Murtaza Syed (1904-1995), prominent Sindhi politician * Ibrahim Bijli Syed (born 1939) ...

Sir Ross Masood bin Mahmood Khan (15 February 1889 – 30 July 1937), was the

Vice-Chancellor A vice-chancellor (commonly called a VC) serves as the chief executive of a university in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Nepal, India, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Kenya, other Commonwealth of Nati ...

Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh Muslim University is a Collegiate university, collegiate, Central university (India), central, and Research university, research university located in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Kh ...

starting in 1929.

Early life and career

Ross Masood was the son of Syed Mahmood. His grandfather was Sir

Syed Ahmed Khan Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (17 October 1817 – 27 March 1898), also spelled Sayyid Ahmad Khan, was an Indian Muslim reformer, philosopher, and educationist in nineteenth-century British India. Though initially espousing Hindu–Muslim unity, he ...

. He had three children: one daughter, Nadira Begum, and two sons, Anwar Masood and Akbar Masood (1917–1971). Ross Masood was educated at

and the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

.Syed Ross Masood - Pursuit of Excellence in Higher Education on aligarhmovement.com website
Retrieved 11 October 2019 On his return from England, Masood was elected a trustee of

Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (, lit. "Science School for the Muslims of India") was founded in 1875 by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, initially as a primary school, with the intention of turning it to a college level institution. It was inspired by t ...

and started his own legal practice in

Patna Patna (; , ISO 15919, ISO: ''Paṭanā''), historically known as Pataliputra, Pāṭaliputra, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the state of Bihar in India. According to the United Nations, ...

. He then entered the

Indian Education Service The Indian Education Service or Indian Educational Service (IES) formed part of the British Raj between 1896 and 1924, when overseas recruitment ceased. It was an administrative organisation running educational establishments in British India, larg ...

as headmaster of the Patna High School, a professor of history at

Ravenshaw College Ravenshaw University, formerly known as Ravenshaw College, is a co-educational state university situated in Cuttack, Odisha on the eastern coast of India. Founded as Ravenshaw College in 1868, the institution became a university in 2006. The u ...

, Cuttack (Orissa), and one of the founders of

Osmania University Osmania University is a collegiate university, collegiate Public university, public State university (India), state university located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. Mir Osman Ali Khan, the 7th Nizam of Hyderabad, issued a ''firman'' calling f ...

. From 1916 to 1928, he was Director of Public Instruction in

Hyderabad Deccan Hyderabad State () was a princely state in the Deccan region of south-central India with its capital at the city of Hyderabad. It is now divided into the present-day state of Telangana, the Kalyana-Karnataka region of Karnataka, and the ...

. In 1922, he travelled to Japan to assess its educational system as a possible model for Hyderabad. In his publication, ''Japan and its Educational System ''(1923), Masood recommended that Hyderabad follow a Japanese model of modernization and educational reform by focusing on the imperial tradition, patriotic nationalism, and freedom from foreign control. He became the

in 1929. He was knighted by the British Government in the 1933 Birthday Honours list.Ross Masood on The London Gazette
Published 6 June 1933, Retrieved 9 October 2019 Here, he introduced new courses, upgraded the syllabi and established laboratories for various science subjects.

Anjuman Taraqqi-i-Urdu Anjuman-i Taraqqi-i Urdu (; ''Organisation for the Progress of Urdu'') was an organisation working for the promotion and dissemination of Urdu language, literature and culture in British India. After the partition of India, the separated orga ...

published a biography of Masood in 2011. He was the president of

. A residential hall constructed in the year 1969 in

is named after him. Ross Masood was linked to the British novelist

E. M. Forster Edward Morgan Forster (1 January 1879 – 7 June 1970) was an English author. He is best known for his novels, particularly '' A Room with a View'' (1908), ''Howards End'' (1910) and '' A Passage to India'' (1924). He also wrote numerous shor ...

. Forster's novel ''

A Passage to India ''A Passage to India'' is a 1924 novel by English author E. M. Forster set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s. It was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th-century English liter ...

'' (1924) is dedicated to Masood.Forster-Masood letters / edited by Jalil Ahmad Kidwai. Karachi, Pakistan : Ross Masood Education and Culture Society of Pakistan, 1984.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Masood, Ross 1889 births 1937 deaths Indian Knights Bachelor Aligarh Muslim University alumni Indian Education Service officers Vice-chancellors of Aligarh Muslim University Indian Muslims 20th-century Indian educational theorists Scholars from Uttar Pradesh