25 Facts About Syed Mahmood

Justice Syed Mahmood was Puisne Judge of the High Court, in the North-Western Provinces of British India from 1887 to 1893, after having served in the High Court in a temporary capacity as officiating judge on four previous periods since 1882.

Syed Mahmood was the first Indian jurist to be appointed to High Court at Allahabad, and the first Muslim to serve as a High Court judge in the British Raj.

Syed Mahmood had a major role in assisting his father, Sir Syed Ahmed Khan in establishing the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, which later developed into Aligarh Muslim University.

Syed Mahmood participated actively in the formation of laws through writing lengthy notes on proposed laws to the legislative councils of both the Governor-General of India and the Lieutenant Governor of the North-Western Provinces.

Syed Mahmood was born in Delhi on 24 May 1850, the second son of Syed Ahmad Khan.

Syed Mahmood subsequently studied in Moradabad, and Aligarh, all cities to which his father had been posted as a member of the Indian Civil Service.

Syed Mahmood studied at the Government College in Delhi and at Queen's College in Benares before passing his Matriculation Examination at the University of Calcutta in 1868.

Syed Mahmood then received a scholarship from the British government in India to study in England.

In 1869, Mahmood was admitted to Lincoln's Inn and in April 1872 he was called to the Bar.

Syed Mahmood worked as a barrister in Allahabad until 1878.

Syed Mahmood was seconded briefly to the Nizam in Hyderabad State, where he assisted with the judicial administration in 1881.

In 1882, Syed Mahmood received his first officiating appointment as a judge to the High Court of the North-Western Provinces in Allahabad, with active lobbying on his behalf by the Viceroy who had replaced Lytton, Lord Ripon.

Syed Mahmood served as an officiating judge three more times before he received his full appointment as Puisne Judge in 1887.

Likewise, in an obituary he wrote, Tej Bahadur Sapru, a younger contemporary of Syed Mahmood's, commented that his long and detailed judgments were necessary because of the spate of new legislation being enacted that needed to be clarified in a court of law.

Syed Mahmood denied that he was an alcoholic and blamed the jealousy of John Edge, the Chief Justice, but even his friends acknowledged it was a problem.

Shortly after returning to India after his studies in England in 1872, Syed Mahmood wrote a proposal for the establishment of a self-supporting Muslim college in India based on the model he had experienced at Cambridge University.

Syed Mahmood then assisted his father, Sir Syed, in founding the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, and continued to play a vital role in its administration even while working as a lawyer and judge in Allahabad.

Syed Mahmood took an active part in teaching English classes and establishing a law program at the school, donating a major portion of his own collection of legal texts to form a legal library.

Syed Mahmood was active in educational ventures outside of the MAOC as well.

Syed Mahmood was an active participant in the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference, delivering a series of lectures on the history of English education in India during the annual meetings of 1893 and 1894.

In 1888, Syed Mahmood married Musharraf Jahan, the daughter of Nawab Khwajah Sharfuddin Ahmad, his father's maternal cousin.

Syed Mahmood purchased a home in Allahabad which was sold to Motilal Nehru who was serving as a barrister in the Allahabad court at that time, and which was eventually renamed Swaraj Bhavan.

Syed Mahmood's first contribution to the legal literature of British India was an Urdu translation of the 1872 Law of Evidence and subsequent amendments, published in 1876.

Syed Mahmood revised his lectures to the Muhammadan Educational Conference and published them in English as A History of English Education in India in 1895.

Syed Mahmood contributed articles to the Aligarh Institute Gazette and the Calcutta Review.