Aligarh Muslim University India

The establishment of Mohammedan Anglo Oriental (MAO) College in 1875 marks one of the most important events in the educational and social history of modern India. Its establishment is considered as the first significant response of the Indian Muslims to the challenges of post 1857 era. It was an important catalyst in a process of social change among Muslims. "An epoch in the social progress of India" - with these words on his lips Lord Lytton laid the foundation stone of the Mohammadan Anglo Oriental College on January 8, 1877. Nearly eight years later, when the noted Orientalist Sir Hamilton Gibb looked back at the history of Muslim Transition from the medieval to the modern way of life, he characterized this College as "the first modernist institution in Islam".