The Lantern of Ajmeri Gate: The Story of the Anglo-Arabic School, Delhi

In the winding lanes of Old Delhi, amid the clamor of hawkers and the fragrance of kebabs, stands a monument that has outlived empires—the Anglo-Arabic School at Ajmeri Gate. It is not merely a school but a living chronicle of India’s educational awakening: a bridge between the Qur’an and calculus, between the mosque and the modern world, between tradition and the spirit of inquiry.

The Visionary Founder: Ghazi-ud-Din Khan

To understand the school’s soul, one must return to the late seventeenth century, when Delhi was the glittering heart of the Mughal Empire. Among Emperor Aurangzeb’s nobles was Ghazi-ud-Din Khan Feroze Jung I, a man of immense learning and administrative brilliance. Though a warrior by rank, he believed that the preservation of faith required the nurturing of intellect. Around 1692, he founded a madrasa complex beside the grand Ajmeri Gate—complete with mosque, courtyard, and lecture halls—dedicated to the teaching of Arabic, Persian, logic, jurisprudence, and philosophy.

This institution, known as Madrasa Ghaziuddin Khan, was built not for power but for posterity. Its founder envisioned it as a sanctuary where young minds could study scripture and science side by side. The marble inscription at the entrance, still faintly visible, bore the timeless aspiration: “Knowledge is the ornament of the believer.”

Ghazi-ud-Din’s vision was quietly revolutionary. In an era when royal courts glorified conquest, he invested his wealth in classrooms. His madrasa became a lighthouse for scholars across the subcontinent—from Lucknow and Multan to Bengal—who came seeking the harmony of revelation and reason.

From Madrasa to Modernity

When the Mughal star dimmed and colonial winds swept through Delhi, the institution refused to die. After the turbulence of 1803 and again after the first War of Independence of 1857, it rose from the ruins, adapting without surrendering its soul. Under the British, it was reorganized as the Delhi College (1828), later renamed the Anglo-Arabic College, where English, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy, and European History were taught alongside Arabic and Persian.

This was India’s first great experiment in syncretic education—a madrasa that became a college without ceasing to be a madrasa. Here, teachers like Master Ram Chander, Deputy Nazeer Ahmed, and Master Pyare Lal lectured side by side; translations from Arabic and English filled its library shelves. It's press—the Delhi Vernacular Translation Society—printed scientific texts for a general readership long before such ideas took root elsewhere.

Through wars, Partition, and the birth of a republic, the college transformed into what is now the Anglo-Arabic Senior Secondary School, under the Delhi Education Society. But the continuity of spirit is unmistakable—the old mosque still stands in the courtyard, the echoes of Ghazi-ud-Din’s dream whispering through its arches.

A School that Nurtured Minds for the Nation

From its classrooms have emerged men of letters, administrators, and reformers whose influence shaped modern India and Pakistan alike. Some wielded pens sharper than swords; others built institutions that continue to serve humanity. Their shared trait was a belief in the balanced education the school offered, in faith without fanaticism, and in modernity without mimicry.

During the 19th century, when India’s Muslims faced the trauma of lost sovereignty, the Anglo-Arabic School became a crucible for reform. Its alumni pioneered new ways of thinking about education, women’s rights, literature, and public service. They debated how to reconcile tradition with modern science, Urdu with English, and theology with philosophy. Out of such debates arose movements that redefined Indian Islam’s relationship with modernity—the Aligarh movement, the Delhi renaissance, and the reassertion of Urdu as a language of intellect rather than nostalgia.

In the pre-Independence decades, many students and teachers were swept into the larger currents of freedom and reform. The school’s proximity to Delhi’s political ferment meant that its courtyards often echoed with discussions on self-rule, equality, and national unity. While it was not a political party’s office, it was the training ground of citizens who would later enter legislatures, universities, and social services.

Symbol of Balanced Education for Indian Muslims

For over three centuries, this institution has stood as proof that Islamic learning and modern knowledge can enrich one another. The Anglo-Arabic School offered generations of Indian Muslims a middle path—one that avoided the pitfalls of isolation and the excesses of imitation. It taught that the Qur’an’s first command, “Read!”, is a call to lifelong curiosity.

Even today, its students memorize verses under the same arches where geometry is taught, recite Urdu couplets beside computer labs, and learn English literature in classrooms that smell faintly of rose water and chalk. The school’s philosophy remains profound yet straightforward: a child should know his faith, his heritage, and the wider world, so that he may live as a confident citizen of a plural India.

Emotional Heritage: A Living Museum

Walking through the Ajmeri Gate campus is to walk through history’s palimpsest. The mosque of Ghazi-ud-Din Khan, with its red sandstone façade and delicate domes, still calls to prayer. Besides, it stands colonial-era halls where once stood the Delhi College. Sunlight falls through latticed windows onto portraits of past principals; cricket bats rest beside blackboards; Arabic calligraphy flows beside English notices. The air carries a mixture of reverence and resilience.

For students who enter these gates today, the past is not a burden but an inheritance. They study the exact arithmetic that colonial surveyors once used to map empires; they quote Ghalib and Shakespeare in the same breath; they learn that the path to independence was also the path to understanding oneself.

Noted Alumni

Deputy Nazeer Ahmed (1836–1912): A novelist, civil servant, and translator, he taught at Delhi College and later authored Mirat-ul-Uroos, India’s first Urdu novel promoting women’s education. His fiction embodied the school’s humanistic ideals.

Zakaullah Dehlvi (1832–1910): Historian, mathematician, and linguist, he translated numerous scientific works into Urdu, making modern knowledge accessible to ordinary people.

Liaquat Ali Khan (1895–1951): Though later associated with Pakistan’s founding, he studied under the school’s lineage of balanced instruction—steeped in civic ethics and liberal learning—that shaped his statesmanship.

Gopi Chand Narang (1931–2022): An alumnus of the modern Anglo-Arabic School, he became India’s most celebrated Urdu scholar and Padma Bhushan awardee, proving the school’s continuing relevance in post-Partition India.

These alumni illuminate a continuum: from the madrasa of Ghazi-ud-Din Khan to the modern classroom, from Delhi’s old lanes to the nation’s heart. Their lives prove that balanced education—faith joined with intellect—remains the surest path to both personal dignity and national progress.