OUR PAST LEADERSHIP
Maulana Mahmud Hasan (1851-1920)
Maulana Mahmud Hasan initially received a traditional Islamic education within his family and then went on to graduate from Dār al-Ulūm Deoband. While teaching became his profession, he developed an interest in politics. In 1878, he formed Samrat al-Tarbiyat (which means ‘fruits of training’)—later renamed as Jamīat al-Ansār—which was a revolutionary organisation. The Silk Letter Movement led to his being exiled to Malta. But upon his return to India, he plunged into the freedom struggle, albeit with a philosophy of non-violence.
The title Shaykh al-Hind was given to him by the Khilāfat Committee in acknowledgement of his dedication and leadership. He always stressed Hindu-Muslim unity. He was also responsible for establishing the organisation Nazarāt al-Maʿrūf to mould Western educated Muslim youth in accordance with the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunna. He set up many revolutionary centres within and outside the country with the sole aim of overthrowing the British. His courage during the Malta exile is legendary and most inspirational.
Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi (1872-1944)
One of the chief architects of the Silk Letter Movement, Maulana Obaidullah Sindhi was a devout student of Shaykh al-Hind. In the first decade of the twentieth century, the duo plunged headlong into revolutionary activities with the aim of securing freedom for their country and the formation of Jamīat al-Ansār. Much of his younger life was spent in garnering support from outside of India and he returned to his nation only in 1939. Sindhi strongly believed that the future of India lay in the unity of Hindus and Muslims. He also accepted that the Congress had the strength and maturity required to present a secular front to the international community, and was needed as a mechanism to maintain unity between Hindus and Muslims. Although a revolutionary his entire life, he stood for liberty, economic equality, social progress and political awareness of society.
Maulana Muftī Kifayatullah (1875-1952)
Muftī Kifayatullah was born at Shahjahanpur, Uttar Pradesh. After graduating from Dār al-ʿUlūm Deoband, he first served as the principal of Madrasah Ijāziyyah, Shahjahanpur, and then later he joined Madrasah Amīniyyah of Delhi and subsequently became its rector. He got involved in the freedom movement led by Shaykh al-Hind, preparing the fatwa regarding the non-cooperation movement that was endorsed by 500 ulama. From the time of the formation of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, he served as its president for two decades. He was a prominent scholar and theologian of the Jamiat and a leader in its struggle for freedom. From an early age, Kifayatullah enjoyed reading and writing. Kifayatullah’s most renowned publication is Talim al-Islām, which consists of four volumes of questions and answers pertaining to details of fundamental beliefs and practices of Islam, meant for children and written in simple language.
Maulana Abdul Bari Firangi Mahali (1878-1926)
Maulana Abdul Bari Firangi Mahali was born in Lucknow. He was a prominent Islamic scholar and a teacher. His family was a fountainhead of knowledge. He was a close associate of Mahatma Gandhi and the Ali brothers during the Khilāfat Movement. He had formed an organization named Khuddām-i Kaʿbah to prevent the desecration of Muslim holy places by the British.
He also founded Madrasah-i Nayimiyyah in Lucknow to impart the traditional wisdom of Islam and to oppose Westernised education. In 1919, after the Khilāfat Conference in Delhi under his leadership, the participant scholars felt the need for a permanent organisation that would lead the Indian Muslims on the path set by Islam; and so the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind was established. He was thus one of the founders of the organisation and continued to remain at the forefront of action during all its initiatives. His numerous sacrifices for the services of the nation and community are renowned.
Maulana Abul Kalam Azad (1888-1958)
This multifaceted personality was born in a religious and educated family in Makkah. Early in his life, it became clear to him that his duties as a Muslim included obligations towards the whole universe, not just his community. Young Azad published a journal called al-Hilāl as a vent for his religious, anti-British and pro-nationalist views. He was the youngest president of the Congress, and fully endorsed Gandhi’s call for non-cooperation, the Salt March, the civil disobedience movement and others, courting arrest and serving jail sentences on many occasions. Like all other leaders of the Jamiat, Maulana Azad used every occasion and forum to reinforce Hindu-Muslim unity.
After independence, he became, befittingly, the first education minister and moulded the new nation’s destiny for over a decade. In 1992, he was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, which is the nation’s highest civilian award. He played a key role in making the national policy on education that still today enables access to education to all students irrespective of their caste, creed etc.
Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani (1879-1957)
His Islamic scholarship was so proficient that he earned the title Shaykh al-Islām. He had been a teacher in Madīnah, where he attached himself to the mission of his mentor Shaykh al-Hind. Thereafter he voluntarily courted arrest and was subsequently exiled to Malta, in order to look after his mentor.
After Shaykh al-Hind’s death, Maulana Hussain Ahmad Madani became the authoritative Islamic voice, reiterating the fatwa in favour of non-cooperation. His fiery speeches, which stressed that Hindus, Muslims and all other communities should struggle together for complete freedom, breathed his love for his country. In his treatise Hamara Hindustān awr uske fazāil, he clearly stated that India is the homeland of the Muslims and thus they must fight for its liberation.
He was perhaps India’s strongest voice for the ‘One Nation Theory’, responsible for millions of Muslims choosing to remain in India, rejecting the making of a nation based on religion. He was not afraid of taking on the Muslim League and other radical organisations. Noting that the word qawm, which is synonymous with ‘nation’, appears 200 times in the Holy Qur’an, he showed how Islam always preached allegiance to the motherland before anything else; so there was never a dilemma in his mind about the Jamiat’s path of ‘united nationalism’.
Maulana Mohammad Miyan Deobandi (1903-1975)
Maulana Mohammad Miyan Deobandi belonged to Saadate Rizwiya family in Deoband. He was a prominent pupil of Allamah Anwar Shah Kashmiri, one of the most celebrated Islamic scholars of the time. He left Deoband, and started teaching at Madrasah Hanafiyyah Arah, Bihar in 1928. He later joined Jāmiah Qāsmiyyah Shahi, Moradabad, and then became a primary member of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. Shortly after joining the organization, he began to take an active role at district and state levels. In 1944, he moved from Moradabad to Delhi to work as a secretary in the central office of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. During his stint, he undertook valuable services for the cause of the nation and community. In 1962, he also served as the General Secretary of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind for a short period.
He had an abiding attachment with the politics and objectives of Jamiat Ulama-i- Hind. His life story of that period was indeed a living history of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind. He played a crucial role in every movement that the organization launched in his age. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Deeni Taalimi Board and Idārat al-Mabāhith Fiqhiyyah.
In addition, he had a masterful command over language and a deep intellectual curiosity. He continued his intellectual and academic pursuits till his last breath. He penned down highly acclaimed books on history, politics and Islam etc. A witness to his deep historical insight can be seen in the following books written by him: Ulama-i-Hind kaa haandar Maazi (4 volumes), Ulama-i-Haqq awr unke Mujahidana Kaarnaame (2 volumes), Aseerane Malta, Jamiat Ulama Kiya hae, Tahrike Shaykh al-Hind.
Maulana Muhammad Sajjad (1884-1940)
He was pan-Islamist scholar from Panhasa, a village in the Nalanda district, Bihar. He was educated at Bihar Sharif, Deoband and Allahabad. He started his career as a teacher of theology and taught at Bihar Sharif, Gaya and Allahabad. He founded Anjuman-Ulama-i-Bihar in 1917. He was one of the founders of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and became its General Secretary in 1940 for only six months till his last breath. He was also the founder of Imarat-i-Sharia Bihar. He took a prominent part in the Khilafat and non-cooperation movements between 1920 and 1922. He worked for Hindu-Muslim unity and actively participated in the hartals to boycott the Simon Commission. He took a prominent role in the civil disobedience movement launched by Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind in 1930 and was imprisoned during the movement. He used to be regarded as the brain of the organization. He passed away in 1940.
Maulana Ahmad Sayeed Dehlawi (1888-1959)
Maulana Ahmad Sayeed Dehlawi was among the foremost leaders of the JamiatUlama-i-Hind, who worked for the organization since the foundation in 1919 till his last breath. His father Nawab Mirza was associated with the Mughal Court and later on served as the prayer leader (imam) at Zeenatul Masajid, Delhi. Maulana Ahmad Sayeed Dehlawi was a great public speaker. That is why he was called Sahban al-Hind (like a legendary Arab orator in India). He played an important role in the freedom movement and was sent to prison several times. During the great upheaval of Partition in 1947, he worked tirelessly to save the Muslims and took many of them to safety. He made many sacrifices while serving the Muslim community. This great leader of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind left for the heavenly abode on 4 September 1959. He also served a term as President of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind after the demise of Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani in 1957.
Maulana Syed Fakhruddin al-Muradabadi (1889-1972)
Maulana Syed Fakhruddin Ahmed was born at Ajmer in 1889. His grandfather, Syed Abdul Karim, was a station house officer (thanedar) in the Police Department there. After graduation in 1910 from Dār al-Ulūm Deoband, he became a teacher in the Dār al-Ulūm. Then after some time, the elders of Dār al-Ulūm, in 1911, sent him to Madrasah Shahi Moradabad, where he lived for nearly 48 years. In 1957, after Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani’s death, the members of the Majlis-i-Shura of Dār al-Ulūm chose him for the post of Shaykh al-Hadith in Dār al-ʿUlūm, Deoband.
Besides his educational preoccupations, he was also connected with national politics from the time of the Khilāfat Movement, as a result of which he too had to bear the hardships and rigors of imprisonment and shackles. During Maulana Madani’s presidency of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, he acted twice as Vice-President; thereafterhe was appointed President and went on discharging the functions of President of this organization till his last breath on 5 April 1972.
Maulana Abul Wafa Sanaullah Amritsari (1868–1948)
Maulana Abul Wafa Shanaullah Amritsari was born at Amritsar in 1868. He was a disciple of Shaykh al-Hind MaulanaMahmud-Ul-Hasanand Miyan Nazeer Hussain from Delhi. He was a great debater, and had a very famous debate with a Qadiyani in 1907; and thereafter he was named “the victor of Qadyan”. Along with writing several books, he used to publish a weekly journal entitled Ahl-i-Hadeesh. This newspaper stopped publishing after the creation of Pakistan. He was a founding member of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind and extended his sincere cooperation in its every movement.
Maulana Hifzur Rehman (1901-1962)
He was a multi-faceted personality: an Islamic scholar, a reputed historian, a prolific writer and a leader (both religious and political). Most importantly, he was a freedom fighter who spent most of his life in the struggle for independence (including eight years in jail) and thereafter in chartering a life of identity and dignity for Muslims who had suffered Partition but had refused to leave India. He was a member of the Constituent Assembly, where he used his position to safeguard the interests of the community, but always within the secular framework of the constitution. Shaykh Hifzur Rehman served
on several community organizations. He was a patron to the Nadwat al-Musannifīn and the national General Secretary of the Jamiat. His writings were aimed at inculcating values of Islam as per the Holy Qur’an and the Hadith, in the form of stories which became very popular for they were easy to read.