William Muir
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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 ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
and Lieutenant Governor of the North-West Provinces of
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
.


Life

He was born at
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
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 Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...
, 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 o ...
and
Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...
scholar. He was educated at
Kilmarnock Academy Kilmarnock Academy (Scottish Gaelic: ''Acadamaidh Chille Mheàrnaig''), formerly Kilmarnock Burgh School, is a state-funded secondary school in Kilmarnock, Scotland, currently located on Sutherland Drive in the New Farm Loch area of the town. The ...
, the universities of
Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
and
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, and
Haileybury College Haileybury may refer to: Australia * Haileybury (Melbourne), a school in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ** Haileybury Rendall School, an offshoot in Berrimah, North Territory, Australia China * Haileybury International School, an internatio ...
. In 1837 he entered the
Bengal Bengal ( ; bn, বাংলা/বঙ্গ, translit=Bānglā/Bôngô, ) is a geopolitical, cultural and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal, predom ...
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 New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is ...
revenue board, and during the Mutiny 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 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. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
ed (
K.C.S.I. The Most Exalted Order of the Star of India is an order of chivalry founded by Queen Victoria in 1861. The Order includes members of three classes: # Knight Grand Commander (GCSI) # Knight Commander ( KCSI) # Companion ( CSI) No appointments ...
), and in 1868 he became lieutenant-governor of the
North Western Provinces The North-Western Provinces was an administrative region in British India. The North-Western Provinces were established in 1836, through merging the administrative divisions of the Ceded and Conquered Provinces. In 1858, the nawab-ruled kingdom ...
. 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, whi ...
, 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 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 cle ...
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 Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
, known as
Muir Central College Muir Central College in 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 Allahabad University. ...
, was built and endowed. Muir College later became a part of the
Allahabad University , mottoeng = "As Many Branches So Many Trees" , established = , type = Public , chancellor = Ashish Chauhan , vice_chancellor = Sangita Srivastava , head_label ...
. 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 (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...
. In 1885 he was elected principal of the
University of Edinburgh The University of Edinburgh ( sco, University o Edinburgh, gd, Oilthigh Dhùn Èideann; abbreviated as ''Edin.'' in post-nominals) is a public research university based in Edinburgh, Scotland. Granted a royal charter by King James VI in 15 ...
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 or Cawnpore (Help:IPA/English, /kɑːnˈpʊər/ pronunciation (Wikipedia:Media help, help·:File:Kanpur.ogg, info)) is an industrial city in the central-western part of the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. Founded in 1207, Kanpur became one ...
, and together they had 15 children. He died in
Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
, 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 on ...
. The grave lies in the concealed lower southern terrace.


Works, reception, and legacy

Muir was a scholar of Islam. His chief area of expertise was the
history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
of the time of
Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد;  570 – 8 June 632 Common Era, CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Muhammad in Islam, Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet Divine inspiration, di ...
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 The Sir Robert Rede's Lecturer is an annual appointment to give a public lecture, the Sir Robert Rede's Lecture (usually Rede Lecture) at the University of Cambridge. It is named for Sir Robert Rede, who was Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in th ...
at
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
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. Muir's contemporary reviewers of his ''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 Reginald Bosworth Smith (1839–1908) was an English academic, schoolmaster, man of letters and author. Background and early life Born on 28 June 1839 at West Stafford rectory, Dorset, he was the second son in the large family of Reginald Southwel ...
, 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 Edward Augustus Freeman (2 August 182316 March 1892) was an English historian, architectural artist, and Liberal Party (UK), Liberal politician during the late-19th-century heyday of Prime Minister William Ewart Gladstone, William Gladstone, as ...
praised the book as a "great work", yet questioned its conjectural methodology, particularly Muir's suggestion that Muhammad was inspired by
Satan Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as Devil in Christianity, the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an non-physical entity, entity in the Abrahamic religions ...
. Contemporary
Aloys Sprenger Aloys Sprenger (born 3 September 1813, in Nassereith, Tyrol; died 19 December 1893 in Heidelberg) was an Austrian Oritentalist. Sprenger studied medicine, natural sciences as well as oriental languages at the University of Vienna. In 1836 he ...
also criticized Muir for ascribing Islam's origins to "the Devil". The ''
British Quarterly Review The ''British Quarterly Review'' was a periodical published between 1845 and 1886. It was founded by Robert Vaughan, out of dissatisfaction with the editorial line of the '' Eclectic Review'' under Edward Miall. Editors *Robert Vaughan for its f ...
'' 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 KCSI (17 October 1817 – 27 March 1898; also 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 `Abdullah Muhammad Ibn ‘Omar Ibn Waqid al-Aslami (Arabic ) (c. 130 – 207 AH; c. 747 – 823 AD) was a historian commonly referred to as al-Waqidi (Arabic: ). His surname is derived from his grandfather's name Waqid and thus he became fa ...
. 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 on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
only after the
Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...
, an unsuccessful uprising against the
East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...
. Later reviews of the work have also been mixed, with many scholars describing Muir's work as polemical.
W. M. Watt William Montgomery Watt (14 March 1909 – 24 October 2006) was a Scottish Orientalist, historian, academic and Anglican priest. From 1964 to 1979, he was Professor of Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Edinburgh. Watt was one of ...
(1961) described Muir's ''Life'' as following "in detail the standard Muslim accounts, though not uncritically".
Mohammed Hussein Heikal Mohammed Hussein Heikal ( ar, محمد حسين هيكل ; August 20, 1888 – December 8, 1956) was an Egyptian writer, journalist, politician. He held several cabinet posts, including minister of education. Life Haekal was born in Kafr Ghan ...
regarded Muir's work as an ''
argumentum ad hominem ''Ad hominem'' (), short for ''argumentum ad hominem'' (), refers to several types of arguments, most of which are fallacious. Typically, this term refers to a rhetorical strategy where the speaker attacks the character, motive, or some other ...
'' fallacy.
Albert Hourani Albert Habib Hourani ( ar, ألبرت حبيب حوراني ''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. Back ...
(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 Clinton Bennett (born 7 October 1955) is a British-American scholar of religions and participant in interfaith dialogue specialising in the study of Islam and Muslim-non-Muslim encounter. An ordained Baptist minister, he was a missionary in Ban ...
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 professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
, 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 Daniel Martin Varisco (born 1951 in Strongsville, Ohio), is an American anthropologist and historian. Varisco has published on the history of Orientalism, the anthropology of Islam, the history of Islamic agronomy and astronomy, agriculture and ...
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 KCSI (17 October 1817 – 27 March 1898; also 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 sometimes directed by the Latin Church in the medieval period. The best known of these Crusades are those to the Holy Land in the period between 1095 and 1291 that were in ...
. 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 Yusuf ibn Ayyub ibn Shadi () ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known by the epithet Saladin,, ; ku, سه‌لاحه‌دین, ; was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from an ethnic Kurdish family, he was the first of both Egypt and ...
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 professor of literature at Columbia University, a public intellectual, and a founder of the academic field of postcolonial studies.Robert Young, ''Whit ...
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 Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual exper ...
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 converting women to Christianity. From the mid 19th century, they sent female missionaries into the homes of Indian women, including the private areas of h ...
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 village Muirabad, near
Allahabad Allahabad (), officially known as Prayagraj, also known as Ilahabad, is a metropolis in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.The other five cities were: Agra, Kanpur (Cawnpore), Lucknow, Meerut, and Varanasi (Benares). It is the administrat ...
. Muir was impressed with the discovery of the ''
Apology of al-Kindy ''Apology of al-Kindi'' (also spelled al-Kindy) is a medieval theological polemic making a case for Christianity and drawing attention to alleged flaws in Islam. The word "apology" is a translation of the Arabic word ', and it is used in the se ...
''; 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, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...
. In ''The Mohammedan Controversy'', he wrote:
Daniel Pipes Daniel Pipes (born September 9, 1949) is an American historian, writer, and commentator. He is the president of the Middle East Forum, and publisher of its ''Middle East Quarterly'' journal. His writing focuses on American foreign policy and the ...
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 verses praise the three pagan Meccan goddesses: al-Lāt, al-'Uzzá, and Manāt and can be read in ear ...
", and concluded that despite
Salman Rushdie Sir Ahmed Salman Rushdie (; born 19 June 1947) is an Indian-born British-American novelist. His work often combines magic realism with historical fiction and primarily deals with connections, disruptions, and migrations between Eastern and Wes ...
's claim that he had borrowed the phrase from
Tabari ( ar, أبو جعفر محمد بن جرير بن يزيد الطبري), more commonly known as al-Ṭabarī (), was a Muslim historian and scholar from Amol, Tabaristan. Among the most prominent figures of the Islamic Golden Age, al-Tabari ...
, 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 (1773–1950, 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 and after Indian independence in 19 ...
at the opening of
Muir College Muir College is a semi-private English medium high school for boys situated in the suburb of Vanes Estate in Kariega (Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality) in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Muir caters for pupils from Grades ...
on 8 April 1886, and was still there in 2012.http://timesofiExtensor Digitorumndia.indiatimes.com/city/allahabad/Restoring-past-glory-of-AUs-Vizianagram-Hall/articleshow/12614622.cms 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 Parks", was an influential Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher, botanist, zoologist, glaciologist, a ...
. 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 (; ne, नेपाल ), formerly the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal ( ne, सङ्घीय लोकतान्त्रिक गणतन्त्र नेपाल ), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is mai ...
when he died. One daughter, Jane, married Colonel
Andrew Wauchope Major-General Andrew Gilbert Wauchope (5 July 1846 – 11 December 1899) was a British Army officer, killed commanding a brigade at the Battle of Magersfontein in the South African War. Life Andrew Gilbert was the second son of Andrew Wauc ...
and lived at Edinburgh Castle.


Publications

*''The Life of Muhammad and 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 Muhammad from 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 Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt, 1260–1517 AD, end of the Caliphate'' *''The Caliphate: Its rise, decline and fall'' *The ''
Apology of al-Kindy ''Apology of al-Kindi'' (also spelled al-Kindy) is a medieval theological polemic making a case for Christianity and drawing attention to alleged flaws in Islam. The word "apology" is a translation of the Arabic word ', and it is used in the se ...
'', 1882 *''Annals of the Early Caliphate'' *''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. *''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. *''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.'' *''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. *''Muhammad and Islam'' *''The Rise and Decline of Islam'' *''The Lord's Supper: an abiding witness to the death of Christ'' *''Sweet First-Fruits. A tale of the Nineteenth Century, on the truth and virtue of the Christian Religion'' *''The Beacon of Truth; or, Testimony of the Coran to the Truth of the Christian Religion'', 1894 *''The Mohammedan Controversy'', 1897 *''James Thomason, lieutenant-governor N.-W. P., India'', 1897 *''The Teaching of the Coran'' * ''
The Opium Revenue ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the ...
'' (1875)


See also

*
Orientalism In art history, literature and cultural studies, Orientalism is the imitation or depiction of aspects in the Eastern world. These depictions are usually done by writers, designers, and artists from the Western world. In particular, Orientalist p ...
* 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 * * * * * * Attribution:


External links

* * * * {{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 Presidents of the Royal Asiatic Society Scottish orientalists Scottish colonial officials 19th-century Scottish writers Burials at the Dean Cemetery