Sir William Muir (27 April 1819 – 11 July 1905) was a Scottish
Orientalist, and colonial administrator, Principal of the
University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
and Lieutenant Governor of the
North-Western Provinces
The North-Western Provinces was an Presidencies and provinces of British India, administrative region in British Raj, British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Cede ...
of
British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...
.
Life
He was born at
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
the son of William Muir (1783–1820), a merchant, and Helen Macfie (1784–1866). His older brother was
John Muir
John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the national park, National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologi ...
, the
Indologist
Indology, also known as South Asian studies, is the academic study of the history and cultures, languages, and literature of the Indian subcontinent, and as such is a subset of Asian studies.
The term ''Indology'' (in German, ''Indologie'') is ...
and
Sanskrit
Sanskrit (; stem form ; nominal singular , ,) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan languages, Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in northwest South Asia after its predecessor languages had Trans-cultural ...
scholar.
He was educated at
Kilmarnock Academy
Kilmarnock Academy (Scottish Gaelic: ''Acadamaidh Chille Mheàrnaig''), formerly Kilmarnock Burgh School, is an 11–17 co-educational state-funded secondary school in Kilmarnock, Scotland, currently serving in its third location on Sutherland D ...
, the universities of
Glasgow
Glasgow is the Cities of Scotland, most populous city in Scotland, located on the banks of the River Clyde in Strathclyde, west central Scotland. It is the List of cities in the United Kingdom, third-most-populous city in the United Kingdom ...
and
Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
, and
Haileybury College
Haileybury is a co-educational public school (fee-charging boarding and day school for 11- to 18-year-olds) located in Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire. It is a member of the Rugby Group and enrols pupils at the 11+, 13+ and 16+ stages of edu ...
.
In 1837 he entered the
Bengal
Bengal ( ) is a Historical geography, historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the Eastern South Asia, eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Benga ...
civil service. Muir served as secretary to the governor of the North-West Provinces, and as a member of the
Agra
Agra ( ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...
revenue board, and during the
Mutiny
Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military or a crew) to oppose, change, or remove superiors or their orders. The term is commonly used for insubordination by members of the military against an officer or superior, ...
he was in charge of the intelligence department there. In 1865 he was made foreign secretary to the Indian Government. In 1867 Muir was
knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity.
The concept of a knighthood ...
ed (
K.C.S.I.), and in 1868 he became lieutenant-governor of the
North Western Provinces.
Having been criticised for the poor relief effort during the
Orissa famine of 1866
The Orissa famine of 1866 affected the east coast of India from Madras northwards, an area covering 180,000 miles and containing a population of 47,500,000; the impact of the famine, however, was greatest in the region of Orissa, now Odisha, whic ...
, the British began to discuss famine policy, and in 1868 Muir issued an order stating that: In 1874 Muir was appointed financial member of the
Viceroy's Council, and retired in 1876, when he became a member of the
Council of India
The Council of India (1858 – 1935) was an advisory body to the Secretary of State for India, established in 1858 by the Government of India Act 1858. It was based in London and initially consisted of 15 members. The Council of India was dissolve ...
in London.
James Thomason
James Thomason (3 May 1804 – 17 September 1853) was a British administrator of the East India Company and Lieutenant-Governor of the North-Western Provinces between 1843 and 1853.
Early life
The son of Thomas Truebody Thomason, a British cler ...
served as Muir's mentor with respect to Imperial administration; Muir later wrote an influential biography of Thomason.
[
Muir had always taken an interest in educational matters, and it was chiefly through his exertions that the central college at ]Allahabad
Prayagraj (, ; ISO 15919, ISO: ), formerly and colloquially known as Allahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi, Varanasi (Benar ...
, known as Muir Central College
Muir Central College in Prayagraj (formerly Allahabad) in northern India was a college of higher education founded by William Muir in 1872. It had a separate existence to 1921, when as a result of the Allahabad University Act it was merged into U ...
, was built and endowed. Muir College later became a part of the University of Allahabad
The University of Allahabad is a Central university (India), Central University located in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh. It was established on 23 September 1887 by an act of Parliament and is recognised as an Institute of National Importance (INI). ...
. In 1884 Muir was elected president of the Royal Asiatic Society
The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society, was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encourag ...
. In 1885 he was elected principal of the University of Edinburgh
The University of Edinburgh (, ; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a Public university, public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Founded by the City of Edinburgh Council, town council under th ...
in succession to Sir Alexander Grant, and held the post till 1903, when he retired.
On 7 February 1840, he married Elizabeth Huntly (1822–1897), daughter of James Wemyss, collector of Cawnpore
Kanpur ( Hindustani: ), originally named Kanhapur and formerly anglicized as Cawnpore, is the second largest city of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh after Lucknow. It was the primary financial and commercial centre of northern India. Founded ...
, and together they had 15 children. He died in Edinburgh
Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. The city is located in southeast Scotland and is bounded to the north by the Firth of Forth and to the south by the Pentland Hills. Edinburgh ...
, and is buried in Dean Cemetery
The Dean Cemetery is a historically important Victorian cemetery north of the Dean Village, west of Edinburgh city centre, in Scotland. It lies between Queensferry Road and the Water of Leith, bounded on its east side by Dean Path and o ...
. The grave lies in the concealed lower southern terrace.
Works, reception, and legacy
Muir was a scholar of Islam
In Islam, the ''ulama'' ( ; also spelled ''ulema''; ; singular ; feminine singular , plural ) are scholars of Islamic doctrine and law. They are considered the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious knowledge in Islam.
"Ulama ...
. His chief area of expertise was the history
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
of the time of Muhammad
Muhammad (8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious and political leader and the founder of Islam. Muhammad in Islam, According to Islam, he was a prophet who was divinely inspired to preach and confirm the tawhid, monotheistic teachings of A ...
and the early caliphate. His chief books are ''A Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira''; ''Annals of the Early Caliphate''; ''The Caliphate: Its rise, decline and fall'', an abridgment and continuation of the Annals, which brings the record down to the fall of the caliphate on the onset of the Mongols; ''The Koran: its Composition and Teaching''; and ''The Mohammedan Controversy'', a reprint of five essays published at intervals between 1885 and 1887. In 1888 he delivered the Rede lecture at Cambridge
Cambridge ( ) is a List of cities in the United Kingdom, city and non-metropolitan district in the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It is the county town of Cambridgeshire and is located on the River Cam, north of London. As of the 2021 Unit ...
on ''The Early Caliphate and Rise of Islam''.
''Life of Mahomet''
His original book ''A Life of Mahomet and History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira'' was initially published 1861 in four volumes. The book received attention in both literary and missionary circles, and provoked responses ranging from appreciation to criticism. It would eventually evoke a rebuttal from Sayyid Ahmad Khan.
Contemporary reviewers of Muir's '' Life of Mahomet'' uniformly praised him for his knowledge of Arabic. The only competing work in Britain at the time was a book by Harrow schoolmaster Reginald Bosworth Smith, who had no Arabic language skills. The work was also praised by Christian missionaries who welcomed it as an aid to convert Muslims.
Contemporary historian E. A. Freeman praised the book as a "great work", yet questioned its conjectural methodology, particularly Muir's suggestion that Muhammad was inspired by Satan
Satan, also known as the Devil, is a devilish entity in Abrahamic religions who seduces humans into sin (or falsehood). In Judaism, Satan is seen as an agent subservient to God, typically regarded as a metaphor for the '' yetzer hara'', or ' ...
. Contemporary Aloys Sprenger also criticized Muir for ascribing Islam's origins to "the Devil". The '' British Quarterly Review'' of 1872 criticized his approach as "he is treading ground whither the historian of events and creeds must refuse to follow him".[
A significant rebuttal to Muir's book was written ]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 ...
in 1870 called ''A Series of Essays on the Life of Mohammed, and Subjects Subsidiary Thereto''.[ Khan praised Muir's writing talent and familiarity with Oriental literature, but criticized Muir's reliance on weak sources like ]al-Waqidi
Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Umar ibn Waqid al-Aslami () ( – 207 AH; commonly referred to as al-Waqidi (Arabic: ; c. 747 – 823 AD) was an early Arab Muslim historian and biographer of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, specializing in his military ...
. He accused Muir of misrepresenting the facts and writing with animus.[ Written objections to this aspect of ''Life'' could be found in the writings of Muslims living inside ]British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance in South Asia. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one form or another ...
only after the Indian Rebellion of 1857
The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against Company rule in India, the rule of the East India Company, British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the The Crown, British ...
, an unsuccessful uprising against the East India Company
The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company that was founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to Indian Ocean trade, trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (South A ...
.
Later reviews of the work have also been mixed, with many scholars describing Muir's work as polemical. W. M. Watt (1961) described Muir's ''Life'' as following "in detail the standard Muslim accounts, though not uncritically". Mohammed Hussein Heikal regarded Muir's work as an '' argumentum ad hominem'' fallacy. Albert Hourani
Albert Habib Hourani, ( ''Albart Ḥabīb Ḥūrānī''; 31 March 1915 – 17 January 1993) was a Lebanese British historian, specialising in the history of the Middle East and Middle Eastern studies.
Background and education
Hourani was bo ...
(1980) said Muir's writing, while "still not quite superseded", regarded Muhammad as "the Devil's instrument" and Muslim society as "barren and bound to remain so". Aaron W. Hughes (2012) writes that Muir's work was part of a European Orientalist tradition that sought to show that Islam was "a corruption, a garbled version of existing monotheisms".[ Bennett (1998) praises it as "a detailed life of Muhammad more complete than almost any other previous book, at least in English," noting however that besides "placing the facts of Muhammad's life before both Muslim and Christian readers, Muir wanted to convince Muslims that Muhammad was not worth their allegiance. He thus combined scholarly and evangelical or missionary purposes." Commenting on Muir's conjecture that Muhammad may have been affected by a Satanic influence, Clinton Bennett says that Muir "chose to resurrect another old Christian theory", and quotes the following passage from Muir's 1858 ''Life'', vol. 2:
In the final chapters of ''Life'', Muir concluded that the main legacy of Islam was a negative one, and he subdivided it in "three radical evils":
According to ]Edward Said
Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...
, although Muir's ''Life of Mahomet'' and ''The Caliphate'' "are still considered reliable monuments of scholarship", his work was characterized by an "impressive antipathy to the Orient, Islam and the Arabs", and "his attitude towards his subject matter was fairly put by him when he said that 'the sword of Muhammed, and the Kor'an, are the most stubborn enemies of Civilisation, Liberty, and the Truth which the world has yet known'". Daniel Martin Varisco rejects Said's assessment that Muir's ''Life'' was considered reliable by the 1970s. He writes "Serious historians had long since relegated Muir's work to the rare-books sections of their libraries."
Other works
Muir's later ''Annals'' was received with fewer reservations by the ''Times'' reviewer and other newspapers of the day. It was the ''Annals'' that established Muir's reputation as a leading scholar on Islam in Britain. Nevertheless, his earlier hypercritical ''Life of Mahomet'' was used as a poster child by contemporary Muslim commentators—especially by Indian ones connected to the movement of 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 ...
—to dismiss all criticism of their society emanating from Western scholars. Syed Ameer Ali went as far as to declare Muir "Islam's avowed enemy".
An illustrative aspect in the evolution of Muir's positions is his stance on the Crusades
The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...
. In his writings of the 1840s, he goaded Christian scholars to verbal warfare against Muslims using aggressive crusader imagery. Fifty year later, Muir redirected the invective hitherto reserved for the Muslims to the crusading leaders and armies, and while still finding some faults with the former, he praised Saladin
Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...
for knightly values. (Muir's anti-Catholic animus may have played a role in this too.) Despite his later writings, Muir's reputation as an unfair critic of Islam remained strong in Muslim circles. Powell finds that William Muir deserves much of the criticism laid by Edward Said
Edward Wadie Said (1 November 1935 – 24 September 2003) was a Palestinian-American academic, literary critic, and political activist. As a professor of literature at Columbia University, he was among the founders of Postcolonialism, post-co ...
and his followers against 19th century Western scholarship on Islam.
Muir was a committed Evangelical Christian
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that emphasizes evangelism, or the preaching and spreading of th ...
and was invited to preface many missionary biographies and memoirs, speak at conferences and to publicise Zenana mission
The zenana missions were outreach programmes established in British India with the aim of Conversion to Christianity, converting women to Christianity. From the mid 19th century, they sent female missionaries into the homes of women in India, Ind ...
s. He wrote "If Christianity is anything, it must be everything. It cannot brook a rival, nor cease to wage war against all other faiths, without losing its strength and virtue." In his official capacity as principal of Edinburgh University, Muir chaired many meetings of Evangelists at the university, organised to support overseas missionary efforts, and addressed by speakers such as Henry Drummond. In India, William Muir founded the Indian Christian
Christianity is Religion in India, India's third-most followed religion with about 28 million adherents, making up 2.3 percent of the population as of the 2011 Census of India, 2011 census. Christianity is the largest religion in parts of Nor ...
village Muirabad, near Allahabad
Prayagraj (, ; ISO 15919, ISO: ), formerly and colloquially known as Allahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi, Varanasi (Benar ...
. Muir was impressed with the discovery of the '' Apology of al-Kindy''; he lectured on it at the Royal Asiatic Society, presenting it as an important link in what he saw as a chain of notable conversions to Christianity, and later he published the translated sources. A proselytising text, ''Bakoorah shahiya'' (''Sweet First Fruits'') was published under his name as well, but this work had actually been written by a convert to Protestantism from Eastern Orthodox Christianity
Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...
.
In ''The Mohammedan Controversy'', he wrote:
Daniel Pipes
Daniel Pipes (born September 9, 1949) is an American former professor and commentator on foreign policy and the Middle East. He is the president of the Middle East Forum, and publisher of its ''Middle East Quarterly'' journal. His writing focus ...
investigated the origin of the phrase "Satanic Verses
The Satanic Verses are words of "satanic suggestion" which the Islamic prophet Muhammad is alleged to have mistaken for divine revelation. The first use of the expression in English is attributed to Sir William Muir in 1858.
The words praise the ...
", and concluded that despite Salman Rushdie
Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie ( ; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British and American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern wor ...
's claim that he had borrowed the phrase from Tabari
Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Jarīr ibn Yazīd al-Ṭabarī (; 839–923 CE / 224–310 AH), commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Sunni Muslim scholar, polymath, historian, exegete, jurist, and theologian from Amol, Tabaristan, present-day ...
, the earliest traceable occurrence is in Muir's ''Life of Mohamet'' (1858) in a passage discussing "two Satanic verses". The phrase does not appear in the revised edition of 1912 though.
Statuary
A marble statue by George Blackall Simmonds was erected in his honour and unveiled by the then Viceroy of India
The governor-general of India (1833 to 1950, from 1858 to 1947 the viceroy and governor-general of India, commonly shortened to viceroy of India) was the representative of the monarch of the United Kingdom in their capacity as the Emperor of ...
at the opening of Muir College on 8 April 1886, and was still there in 2012. Another was proposed for the Muslim college, but due to opposition the scheme was dropped.
Family
He was the brother of the indologist John Muir
John Muir ( ; April 21, 1838December 24, 1914), also known as "John of the Mountains" and "Father of the national park, National Parks", was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologi ...
. He married Elizabeth Huntly Wemyss in 1840 (died 1897), and had five sons and six daughters; four of his sons served in India, and one of them, Colonel A. M. Muir (died 1899), was Political Officer for South Baluchistan, and was acting British Resident in Nepal
Nepal, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mainly situated in the Himalayas, but also includes parts of the Indo-Gangetic Plain. It borders the Tibet Autonomous Region of China Ch ...
when he died. One daughter, Jane, married Colonel Andrew Wauchope and lived at Edinburgh Castle. One of his sons-in-law was the civil servant William Henry Lowe.
Publications
*''The Life of Mahomet uhammadand History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira''
** Vols. 1–2 (published in 1858) by Smith, Elder, & Co.
** Vols. 3–4 (published in 1861) by Smith, Elder, & Co. together with a reprinting of the first two volumes; title shortened to ''The Life of Muhammad''.
*''The Life of Mahomet ohammadfrom original sources''
** 2nd abridged one-volume ed. of the above (published in 1878), xi+errata slip, xxviii, 624 pp. London: Smith, Elder, & Co.
** 3rd abridged ed. (published in 1894) by Smith, Elder, & Co., ciii, 536 p.
** posthumously revised ed. by Thomas Hunter Weir published in (1912) as ''The life of Mohammad from original sources'', cxix, 556 pp.
*'' The Opium Revenue'' (1875)
*''The Coran: Its Composition and Teaching'' (1878)
*The '' Apology of al-Kindy'' (1882)
*''Annals of the Early Caliphate'' (1883)
*''The Rise and Decline of Islam'' (1883)
*''Mahomet uhammadand Islam: A Sketch of the Prophet's Life'' (1887)
*''The Caliphate: Its Rise, Decline and Fall'' (1891; revised ed. 1915)
*''Sweet First-Fruits. A tale of the Nineteenth Century, on the truth and virtue of the Christian Religion'' (trans. 1893)
*''The Beacon of Truth; or, Testimony of the Coran to the Truth of the Christian Religion'' (1894)
*''The Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt, 1260–1517 AD, end of the Caliphate'' (1896)
*''Agra in the Mutiny: And the Family Life of W. & E. H. Muir in the Fort, 1857 : a Sketch for Their Children'' (1896). 59 pp. Privately published.
*''James Thomason, lieutenant-governor N.-W. P., India'' (1897)
*''The Mohammedan Controversy'' (1897)
*''The Sources of Islam, A Persian Treatise'', by the Rev. W. St. Clair-Tisdall, translated and abridged by W. M. (1901). Edinburgh, T & T Clark.
*''Two Old Faiths: Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans''. J. Murray Mitchell and Sir William Muir. (1901). New York: Chautauqua Press.
*''Records of the Intelligence Department of the Government of the North-West Provinces of India during the Mutiny of 1857 including correspondence with the supreme government, Delhi, Cawnpore, and other places''. (1902). 2 vols, Edinburgh, T & T Clark.
*''The Lord's Supper: an abiding witness to the death of Christ'' (nd)
See also
*Orientalism
In art history, literature, and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects of the Eastern world (or "Orient") by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. Orientalist painting, particularly of the Middle ...
* Origin and development of the Qur'an
References
Notes
*
* Ansari, K. Humayun. "The Muslim World in British Historical Imaginations: 'Re-thinking Orientalism'?" ''British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies'' (2011) 38#1 pp: 73-93
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Attribution:
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Muir, William
1819 births
1905 deaths
Civil servants from Glasgow
People educated at Haileybury and Imperial Service College
People educated at Kilmarnock Academy
Alumni of the University of Edinburgh
Scholars of medieval Islamic history
Principals of the University of Edinburgh
Knights Commander of the Order of the Star of India
Members of the Council of India
British critics of Islam
Presidents of the Royal Asiatic Society
Scottish orientalists
Scottish colonial officials
19th-century Scottish writers
Burials at the Dean Cemetery
Members of the Council of the Governor General of India
Christian critics of Islam
Scottish Evangelical writers