Abu Sayeed Ayyub

Abu Sayeed Ayyub (Bengali language: আবু সয়ীদ আইয়ুব; 1906–1982) was an Indian philosopher, teacher, literary critic and writer in both Bengali and English.

Though born into a traditional, Urdu-speaking, Muslim family in Calcutta (Kolkata), he was so deeply captivated in his early teenage by the poems of the Indian Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore that he taught himself Bengali so as to appreciate Tagore better.

Later, when he started to write, it was mostly in his adopted language, Bengali.

During the initial part of his writing career, Ayyub wrote on aesthetics, religion and socialism.

However, it was his philosophical and scientific analysis of creative literature - in particular the poetry and the drama of Tagore - that finally brought him wide recognition as "one of the most serious and original Tagore scholars".

Ayyub is also credited with "co-editing the first anthology of modern Bengali poetry".

He taught philosophy at the University of Calcutta, the Visva-Bharati University and the University of Melbourne, and edited the literary and philosophical journal Quest.

Ayyub was born into a traditional, cultured Muslim family and spent most of his early life in his ancestral home in Central Calcutta.

He was the fifth and youngest child of Ameena Khatun and Abul Mukarem Abbad, who served as the personal clerk to the then Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon (George Curzon).

Ayyub first went to the English-medium St. Anthony's School and then completing the Intermediate Science course at the St. Xavier's College, Kolkata.

When 13, he read the Urdu translations of Tagore's Gitanjali in the Urdu literary magazine Kah-Kushan.

This moved him to learn Bengali and read the original works of Tagore; over the next few years, he taught himself the language with the help of popular Bengali novels.

Two other major influences during his early teenage years were his sister-in-law, who introduced him to Charles Dickens, George Elliott and Charlotte Brontë, and his teacher of Urdu and Persian at St. Anthony's, who encouraged him to read the classical Urdu and Persian poetry of Ghalib, Mir Taqi Mir, Khwaja Mir Dard, Omar Khayyam and Hafez.

He joined Presidency College, Calcutta (now Presidency University, Kolkata) for his B.Sc.

degree with Physics as the honours (major) subject.

Though he was already planning to study philosophy in future, he continued on to his M.Sc., mainly to satisfy his fascination with Einstein's General Relativity theory.

He was fortunate to get an opportunity to study Arthur Eddington’s "Mathematical Theory of Relativity" with the famous mathematician, Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis.

However, ill health prevented Ayyub from finishing his M.Sc.

course and he went on to complete his M.A. in philosophy.

While studying for his M.A., Ayyub accepted a research scholarship and worked on the "Content of Error in Perception and Thought".

His research supervisor, the famous Indian philosopher (and later the second President of independent India), Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan, did not however appreciate his ‘logic chopping and hair splitting analysis’!

Ayyub soon discovered the impracticality of carrying out research on modern Western Philosophy in India of the 1930s, due to a lack of access to modern journals as well as the paucity of like-minded thinkers.

These circumstances eventually nudged him towards his second love: literature.

Ayyub announced his arrival into the literary world of Bengal with four essays on the interplay of philosophy, physics, aesthetics and literature that were published between 1934 and 1936 in the premier Bengali literary journal of the time, Porichoy, edited by Sudhindranath Dutta.

His early training in science not only influenced his analytical style of writing but had left him with a lifelong interest in the latest scientific developments.

In 1940, Ayyub co-edited (with Hirendranath Mukherjee) the first definitive anthology of modern Bengali poetry (Adhunik Bangla Kabita) with a comprehensive introduction, an abridged version of which was also translated into English.

Much later (in 1957), he produced a similar anthology of modern Bengali romantic poetry (Pa(n)chish Bochhor-er Prem-er Kabita).

Ayyub's study of the religious philosophy and world view of Tagore was based on an analysis of his poetry and drama.

Between 1958 and 1968, Ayyub co-edited (with Amlan Datta) the literary and philosophical journal, Quest, published from Bombay (now Mumbai).

During this period, Quest published the work of some of India's most prominent intellectuals of the time, including: Nirad C. Chaudhuri, Rajni Kothari, Sibnarayan Ray, P. Lal, Dom Moraes, Khushwant Singh, and Gieve Patel.

Some of Ayyub's own work first appeared in its pages.

However, Quest was among several international journals which were financially supported by the Paris-based Congress for Cultural Freedom (CCF).

Most of these essays appeared in the Bengali literary magazine, Desh during the mid-1960s and were later collected and published as three books: Adhunikata O Rabindranath (Modernism and Tagore) in 1968, Panthojaner Sokha (The Wayfarer's Friend) in 1973, and Pather Shesh Kothay (Where does the journey end) in 1977.

These studies were hailed by critics as a new way of understanding Tagore.

Ayyub received the highest honours at both the State level (Rabindra Memorial Award) as well as National level (Sahitya Akademi Award) for his work on Tagore.

During the 70s, he also published two collections of Bengali translations of his favourite Urdu poets, Ghalib and Mir Taqi Mir.

During 1966–67, the New York Times revealed that the CCF was partly funded by the CIA.

In view of the strongly leftist sentiments prevailing in Bengal at the time, this news placed Ayyub in an awkward situation.

He declared his ignorance of this issue, categorically stating that "Quest's editorial policies have always been free of outside control" and cited several articles openly critical of the CIA that had appeared in the journal during his editorship.

However, Ayyub left Quest soon afterwards, in 1968.