Sir Sayyid's long and adventurous life contained two or three ordinary lifetimes full of activity. In the larger societal arena, his beloved Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (1878) at Aligarh was his supreme achievement, but in other domains, he consistently saw himself, and was seen, as a mediator between the British and ‘native’ ideas and interests. Not surprisingly, his literary output was voluminous – he has left us records of his antiquarian interests (Ā ār-ul ṣanādīd, 1854 [1847]), his religious views (a commentary on the Qur'an), and his journalistic commitments (Tahżīb-ul a hlāq), along with numerous letters, essays, reviews, and speeches on a wide variety of topics.

Undoubtedly, the greatest watershed in his life was the Indian Rebellion of 1857. As an East India Company administrator posted in Bijnor, he was emphatically true to his salt, risking his life repeatedly in defense of British lives and interests. Then, in 1858, almost before the rebellion was over, he recorded his personal experiences and local impressions in ‘History of the Bijnor Rebellion’. However, the Bijnor account – as fascinating as it is – has always been obscured by his greater achievement during this intensely turbulent year: his famous work, really a sort of long pamphlet, called ‘The Causes of the Indian Revolt’ (Asbāb-e baġhāvat-e Hind).

In writing a work with such a title, at so fraught a time, Sir Sayyid knew that he was courting trouble. Still, he was determined. Once Sir Sayyid had gotten 500 copies of his Urdu pamphlet printed, the result was a dramatic scene: