January 1858 he summoned Muir to join him there as secretary to his government. Muir's experience and influence became all-important in the reorganisation of the provinces through 1858. To form after the Mutiny a permanent settlement of the North- West Provinces which should at once content the people and satisfy the revenue was the problem which Muir solved in his masterly minute of 5 Dec. 1861, when he was senior member of the board of revenue. He showed how the desired result could be reached gradually, on the basis of corn rents. That great state paper convinced the government of India. Political changes at the India office in London first delayed sanction and then indefinitely postponed the decision. To that delay was largely due the loss of life, property, and revenue since caused by famines in northern and central India.
After acting as provisional member of the governor-general's legislative council from 1864 Muir became foreign secretary under John first Lord Lawrence in 1867, when he was created K.C.S.I. Next year he became lieutenant-governor of the North-West Provinces, and held office till 1874. The sympathy and the efficiency which he brought to his administration obliterated the last traces of the rebellion. He mitigated the severity of the land assessment, and passed two acts which consolidated and amended the land laws of the North-West Provinces. He checked, and finally abolished, Hindu female infanticide, without creating political discontent. He promoted the spread of both primary and university education. The Muir college, which bears his name, at Allahabad, and the university which he instituted there, perpetuate his memory, and he devoted his leisure to the welfare of the Christian natives. From 20 Nov. 1874 to Sept. 1876 he held the high office of financial member of Lord Northbrook's council.
When Queen Victoria became Empress of India she adopted, as the translation of that title, the phrase, which Muir suggested, of Kaisar-i-Hind. At a later period, when a guest at Balmoral, he assisted Queen Victoria in her Hindustani studies.
On his retirement from India in 1876 he accepted the invitation of Lord Salisbury, secretary of state for India, to join the council of India in London. But he resigned his seat there on 16 Dec. 1885 on being appointed principal of Edinburgh University. That office he held till his death. Finding the official residence insufficient, he acquired Dean Park House, which became the centre of a gracious hospitality, that soon obliterated the memory of old academic feuds. In the words of Sir Ludovic Grant, son of Sir Alexander Grant [q. v.], his immediate predecessor, he 'cemented cordial relations between the university and all sections of the community.' He proved a generous benefactor to the university, and was generally known as 'the students' principal.'
Meanwhile Muir amid his official labours made a universal reputation as an Arabic scholar and an historian of Islam. To the 'Calcutta Review,' while it was edited by the present writer from 1857 onwards, Muir contributed fifteen articles, and on these he based his standard 'Life of Mahomet—History of Islam to the Era of the Hegira' (4 vols. 1858-61). He acquired the MSS. of the first authorities, Wakidi, Hishami, and Tabari, and subsequently presented his valuable MS. of Wakidi to the India office, after, giving a transcript to the Edinburgh University library. A third edition of Muir's 'Life,' in one volume, omitting the introductory chapters and most of the notes, appeared in 1894 and was out of print at his death. In 1881 Muir delivered the Rede lecture at Cambridge on 'The Early Caliphate and Rise of Islam.' In 1883 his 'Annals of the Early Caliphate' and in 1896 his 'Mameluke or Slave Dynasty of Egypt' completed his great history down to the assumption of the title of Caliph by the Osmanli Sultanate. To the last volume Muir prefixed a lecture which he delivered to the. Edinburgh students in 1894 on the Crusades, 'that great armament of misguided Christianity.' Meanwhile he also published 'The Coran: its Composition and Teaching, and the Testimony it bears to the Holy Scriptures' (1878); 'Extracts from the Coran, in the Original, with English rendering' (1880); 'The Apology of al-Kindy' (1881 and 1887); ' The Old and New Testaments, Tourat, Zubur and Gospel; Moslems invited to see and read them' (1899), and other small treatises. 'Ancient Arabic Poetry: its Genuineness and Authenticity,' in Royal Asiatic Society's 'Journal' in 1879, is of high value.
He was elected president of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland in 1884, and in 1903, in recognition of 'the great value, importance, and volume' of his work on Islamic history and literature, was awarded the triennial jubilee gold medal, previous holders being E. B. Cowell [q. v. Suppl. II] and E. W. West [q. v. Suppl II]. He was made hon. D.C.L. of Oxtord in 1882, LL.D. of Edinburgh and Glasgow,
