AMU: Where I met myself

Aligarh Muslim University—just the name holds weight, a soul of its own. A hundred years may have passed, but within its red-bricked silence lives something timeless. Built on the dream of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, AMU is more than a university—it is a world, a feeling, a quiet revolution that continues with every student who walks its path.

I still remember the first time I stepped inside the gates—as a student of Sayyid Hamid Senior Secondary School. A boy of sixteen, alone and unsure, carrying a small suitcase and a heart full of questions. Everything felt overwhelming—the grandeur of the buildings, the strangers who would become companions, the history breathing through every corridor. I didn’t know it then, but I had just stepped into a place that would slowly, patiently, change me forever.

Over the years—from intermediate to graduation, and then through a Master’s in Strategic and Security Studies—AMU became my canvas, my compass. It gave me more than books or lectures. It offered me myself.

Learning here wasn’t confined to the four walls of a classroom. It was scattered everywhere—in Maulana Azad Library’s deep silence, in heated evening debates under hostel lampposts, in the hush of 5 a.m. walks through tree-lined paths. This university speaks, if you know how to listen.

Somewhere in between, I found my words. Writing didn’t come to me as a profession—it arrived like a whisper, a calling I couldn’t ignore. I didn’t plan to become an author. I simply wrote because I had something that needed to be said. In those moments, AMU wasn’t just a background—it was the soil in which my voice grew. I wrote three books during my time here—not for fame, but to honour the gift of expression this place gave me.

But it wasn’t all beautiful. There were days of isolation, long nights filled with self-doubt, and mornings when nothing felt enough. AMU never promised perfection—it only promised a space to grow. And it delivered. In the stillness of its mornings, in the quiet kindness of friends, in the resilience built after every failure—I found pieces of strength I never knew I had.

Through my department, I learned to understand the larger world—geopolitics, strategy, power. But through AMU’s everyday life, I learned something greater: compassion, humility, patience. It shaped not just my intellect, but my character. That’s the kind of education you don’t find in syllabi.

What makes AMU truly extraordinary is that it doesn’t demand brilliance—it simply asks you to be present. To show up, heart and soul. And when you do, it meets you. That’s exactly what happened with me.

Even now, as an alumnus, its essence walks with me. In the way I write, speak, listen. In how I carry my identity. I don’t see AMU as something I left behind—I carry it forward, wherever I go. It taught me not just how to succeed, but how to stay grounded. To remain human.

I often wonder—what would have become of me had I not come here? I might have still written, still lived, but I wouldn’t have become in the way I did. AMU gave structure to my chaos, language to my silence, and belonging in moments when I felt like a stranger to myself.

To be an Alig is not merely to own a degree—it is to carry a legacy. Of resistance, of refinement, of learning that changes lives quietly and deeply. A legacy written in red bricks, and carried in hearts.

For me, above everything, AMU is the place where I first met myself. And once you’ve truly met yourself, you never go back.

Faheem ul islam is an Author, public speaker hailing from Achan Pulwama and has done his masters in international politics from AMU.