2: AHL-I SUNNAT MADRASAS
The Madrasa Manzar-i Islam, Bareilly, and Jamia Ashrafiyya, Mubarakpur
Usha Sanyal
1
The Ahl-i Sunnat or Barelwi movement began in the 1880s under the leadership of Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan Barelwi (1856–1921), who spent his lifetime writing fatwas from his hometown of Bareilly, in west Uttar Pradesh (U.P.).
Ahmad Raza’s family was of Pathan ancestry and belonged to the class of the ashraf or elite. They made their livelihood through the ownership of land and assets in Bareilly and neighbouring villages, as well as land holdings in east U.P.
Like most other North Indian ulama, Ahmad Raza was a Sunni Hanafi scholar.
He was educated entirely at home. Since the years of his youth coincided with the turbulence of the post-1857 period, including the British occupation of Muslim mosques, his family may have decided to keep him at home rather than sending him to a madrasa. The sources are silent on the issue, even though there were well-known madrasas in towns such as Rampur, close to Bareilly.
Ahmad Raza’s main teacher was his father Maulana Naqi Ali Khan (d. 1880).
His education was similar to that of most North Indian Sunni ulama at the time:
the subjects studied were chiefly fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), the ‘queen’ of the Islamic sciences for an alim (scholar), and other associated disciplines – principles of jurisprudence (usul al-fiqh), hadith, Qur’an, grammar and rhetoric, philosophy and logic, mathematics, and so on. Early on he imbibed the intellectual perspective of his father. The latter devotedhimself
to refuting the ideas of Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi (d. 1831), leader of the Tariqa-i Muhammadiyya movement, who was from Rae Bareli, Awadh (not to be confused with Bareilly, Rohilkhand). Naqi Ali considered Sayyid Ahmad a ‘Wahhabi’. In his writings, Naqi Ali defended the Prophet Muhammad against what he considered the belittling of his powers by Sayyid Ahmad Barelwi and his associate Muhammad Isma’il Dihlawi (d. 1831), author of the book Taqwiyat al-Iman (Strengthening of the Faith). Ahmad Raza carried these concerns forward in his own career, writing numerous fatwas in defence of the Prophet.These fatwas were issued from his Dar al-Ifta’ which occupied a part of his home.
23
Together with the education he received as an alim, Ahmad Raza was asufi
affiliated with the Qadiri order (though he was also formally affiliated with the other major orders). This too was a family tradition. His paternal grandfather, Raza Ali Khan (d. 1865–6) had distinguished himself as asufi
of great piety, and was said to have passed on his gnostic knowledge to Ahmad Raza. At a young age, Ahmad Raza became discipled to Sayyid Shah Al-i Rasul (d. 1878–9), a sayyid (descendant of the Prophet) from the town of Mahrehra, near Aligarh, jointly with his father. Although his pir (spiritual guide) died a few years later, Ahmad Raza retained a lifelong connection with his spiritual successor (sajjadanishin, literally, ‘one who sits on the prayer mat’), Nuri Miyan (d. 1906), and celebrated Shah Al-i Rasul’s death anniversary (urs) annually at Bareilly.
To this day the Ahl-i Sunnat or Barelwi movement reveres the memory and legacy of Ahmad Raza Khan and all that he stood for. His students and followers took his message of love for the Prophet and strong disagreement with all those who in his view belittled the Prophet’s powers, and publicized it in their own schools, journals, and other endeavours. After Ahmad Raza’s death, his home in Bareilly became asufi
hospice or khanqah called the Khanqah Aliyya Rizwiyya under the direction of Hamid Raza Khan (d. 1943), his eldest son.
In this chapter, I refer to the movement by its chosen name, Ahl-i Sunnatwa
Jama’at (or ‘Ahl-i Sunnat’ for short), rather than Barelwi. The issue of nomenclature and its implications are well known to all those who have worked on the South Asian Sunni Muslim movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Thus, in their literature the Ahl-i Sunnat refer to themselves as ‘Sunnis’, implying thereby that Deobandis and other Sunni groups are non-Sunni, which turns the tables on the Deobandis and other antagonists, who make similar claims about them. They sometimes refer to the Deobandis as ‘Wahhabis’, a term first used by Ahmad Raza Khan for certain founders of the Dar al-Ulum in Deoband in the 1860s.
The chapter deals with two madrasas, one at Bareilly, in west U.P., and the other, the Jamia Ashrafiyya, the Ahl-i Sunnat’s largest madrasa in India today, in Azamgarh, east U.P. I shall try to draw some points of contrast between them.
In addition, I follow the career of a leading Ahl-i Sunnat scholar, Yasin Akhtar Misbahi, who is a graduate of the Jamia Ashrafiyya. Over the years he has worn many hats – that of community activist, editor, writer and teacher – from different cities in North India, including his centre in Delhi, to promote the aims of the Ahl-i Sunnat perspective.
The Dars-i Nizami and other intellectual issues
The books taught at the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam and the Jamia Ashrafiyya – broadly based on the Dars-i Nizami ‘syllabus’, which was created by Maulana Nizam al-Din Sihalawi (d. 1748) in the eighteenth century – are common to all the different Sunni groups (the Deobandis, Farangi Mahallis, Nadwis and others), although each madrasa adopts somewhat different texts. (The names of the texts used by the two Ahl-i Sunnat madrasas examined here are noted in the appendices at the end of this essay.) Francis Robinson, who has closely studied the Farangi Mahalli ulama and their intellectual tradition (Robinson 2001), points out that the Dars-i Nizami is less a fixed set of books taught – and therefore less a syllabus as such – than it is a method of teaching:
Too much emphasis . should not be given to the actual number of books in each subject. Nothing was laid down that all should be taught; teachers introduced books according to the ability of the student.
Indeed, Mulla Nizam al-Din’s method was to teach the two most difficult books in each subject on the grounds that once they had been mastered the rest would present few problems. (2001: 46) The idea was to encourage critical thinking rather than promote rote learning.
By the eighteenth century the high ideals of the Dars-i Nizami method ‘ossified’ – to cite Robinson again (2001: 37) – into a standard set of prescribed texts favoured by Nizam al-Din. While this development has come under increasing criticism of late, we must be careful not to ascribe too much uniformity to the curriculum across South Asian madrasas, either diachronically over time or synchronically over space. Hartung (n.d.) argues that madrasas’ choice of texts was often determined by the wishes expressed by those making endowments (waqfs) and by individual teachers, and that there was considerable variety from one madrasa to another. A similar argument is made by Zaman (2002). An example of the variety of texts used is found in the Jamia Ashrafiyya, where one of the texts – Bahar-i Shariat, an eighteen-volume collection of legal opinions (fatwas) dealing with aqa’id or articles of faith – was written by Amjad Ali A’zami, a deputy (khalifa) of Ahmad Raza Khan. As we will see in the section on the Jamia Ashrafiyya below, he was associated with the madrasa’s early history.
This work, being associated with the Ahl-i Sunnat movement and its perspective, is unlikely to be used in madrasas belonging to other movements.
Even when similar texts are used, we might expect interpretive differences to prevail, reflecting the perspective of the particular madrasa. Because the Ahl-i Sunnat pride themselves on their love of the Prophet, their interpretation of specific hadiths (traditions of the Prophet), for instance, is likely to differ from that of the Deobandis, Ahl-i Hadith or the Nadwa, who view the Prophet in ‘human’ rather than ‘superhuman’ terms (on the evolution of the Nadwa, see Malik 1997). In addition, the criteria which determine which hadiths different ulama would accept as sound might – and sometimes did – differ from one to another, depending on the issue at hand.
In terms of the well-known distinction between ulama movements that favoured the transmitted sciences (manqulat) and those that favoured the Islamic rational sciences (ma’qulat), the Farangi Mahalli ulama belonged to the latter tradition, as reflected in their choice of texts (Robinson 2001: 46–55). The Ahl-i Sunnat ulama were in the ma’qulat tradition as well. However, Hartung reminds us that here again we must beware of drawing rigid distinctions, for the ideal Islamic scholar, regardless of specific affiliation, was that of an all-rounded person, ‘skilled in all the Islamic sciences’, as so many biographical dictionaries (tazkiras) of South Asian ulama tell us in describing their subjects’ intellectual attainments (Hartung n.d.). Furthermore, a single text might span a number of subject areas, not just one. We need, then, to think of the madrasa ‘syllabus’
in an open-ended way, both today and in the colonial period.
One of the characteristics of contemporary Ahl-i Sunnat madrasas, compared to those in the past, is that they downplay the study of philosophy, on the grounds that a teacher whose adherence to the ‘principles and truth of Sunni Islam’ falls short of expectations and whose knowledge of the faith is not sound would not be able to lead students forward in their studies, and may in fact mislead them. Similarly, the study of grammar and related skills, according to the Ahl-i Sunnat ulama, must be undertaken in conjunction with the religious sciences and not for their own sake (Jandran n.d.: 84–5). This view appears to have had broad agreement among several Deobandi and Ahl-i Sunnat ulama.
Madrasa Manzar-i Islam
The Ahl-i Sunnat movement’s first madrasa was the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam at Bareilly, founded by Ahmad Raza in 1904. It celebrated its one hundredth anniversary in 2004. This occasion was marked by a series of publications by the journal Ala Hazrat in Bareilly, whose editor-in-chief (mudir-i ala) is Subhan Raza Khan, known as Subhani Miyan.
Starting in 2001, the journal published four volumes dealing with the history of the madrasa, together with a separate volume dealing exclusively with fatwas issued over the preceding 100 years. In Karachi, Pakistan, where the journal Ma’arif-i Raza is published, the occasion was also marked by special issues of the journal. The following brief account is based on a small selection of articles from Ala Hazrat.
The Madrasa Manzar-i Islam, although formally founded by Ahmad Raza, owed a great deal to the initiative of other ulama as well. Ahmad Raza’s disciple and biographer Zafar al-Din Bihari (d. 1942) played a leading role in its creation, having found that the only madrasa in Bareilly was dominated by Deobandis (Bihari 1938). Ahmad Raza appears to have been reluctant to approve the idea at first, but was persuaded by the arguments made by a sayyid:
Maulana Ahmad Raza Khan was busy writing fatwas and other literary pursuits. But his dear friend, Sayyid Amir Ahmad Sahib, persisted and said that if you don’t strengthen religious belief and close the door to the absence of religiosity (la-diniyat) by starting a madrasa, I will speak against you on Judgment Day.Maulana Zafar al-Din Bihari sec- onded his plea.
Hearing this from a descendant of the Prophet (al-i rasul), [Ahmad Raza] said: ‘I accept your command. The madrasa will be established. I will contribute my own money for its expenses in the first months. After that others will take over the responsibility for running it.’ (Latifi 2004: 81) The fact that a sayyid recommended the idea to him was important, as in Ahmad Raza’s view sayyids, being descendants of the Prophet, were by definition owed respect by all non-sayyids (Ahmad Raza, of Pathan ancestry, was not a sayyid).
The school building was provided by another well-wisher, who gave his house, and Zafar al-Din Bihari and another of Ahmad Raza’s students became its first regular teachers. Ahmad Raza became its founder (bani). He taught there (the hadith collection of Bukhari is specifically mentioned) for a few years, but his fatwa-writing and other intellectual activities made it impossible for him to continue and soon he turned over its administration and overall management to Hamid Raza, his older son, with his younger brother Hasan Raza Khan (d. 1908) playing a supportive role. Once a year, as the school’s rector or patron (sarparast), he addressed the teachers, students and guests at the annual graduation (dastar-bandi) ceremonies. This public address was one of three annual events when he addressed his followers from his house – the other two were the birth anniversary of the Prophet (on the twelfth day of Rabi’ al-Awwal) and the urs (celebration of a saint’s day of death) of his pir, Shah Al-i Rasul.
The historical context for the founding of the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam is noteworthy. As the sayyid quoted above indicated (by asking Ahmad Raza to ‘strengthen religious belief and close the door to the lack of religiosity’), the school was founded in an atmosphere of competition with other Sunni Muslim groups. At this time the Ahl-i Sunnat felt threatened particularly by the Deobandis and the Nadwat al-Ulama. In the 1890s, Ahmad Raza had been actively engaged in refuting the Nadwa, writing about 200 fatwas on this specific issue.
In 1900, one of his anti-Nadwa fatwas was published with the confirmatory opinions (tasdiqat) of sixteen ulama from Mecca and seven from Medina. That same year, he was declared the Renewer (mujaddid) of the fourteenth Hijri century by his followers in the course of an anti-Nadwa conference in Patna (Bihari 1980: 66). In 1906, shortly after the founding of the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam, Ahmad Raza Khan went to the Haramayn where he wrote a fatwa against a number of Indian ulama, going so far as to declare Maulana Rashid Ahmad Gangohi of Deoband, and some others, to be kafirs (Sanyal 1996a, 1999).
In the first decades after its founding, the number of graduating students in a given year was initially quite small (from four to ten graduates in the years 1908–17, according to newspaper reports I consulted, growing to twenty per year in the 1930s and 1940s). However, followers remember the early years as glorious ones, given that Ahmad Raza Khan himself was teaching there at the time:
In a few years . students began to seek admission in this center of education (markaz-i ’ilm) and the chain of teaching and learning reached its zenith. In a short time the Jamia became famous and students began to flock to it. And why would it not be so? [At this time] A’la Hazrat [Ahmad Raza] taught there [and] paid the teachers’ salaries out of his own pocket and met other expenses too. (Latifi 2004: 147) Bihari relates a story illustrating Ahmad Raza’s love for his students and his personal generosity toward them, which also shows that students came to the madrasa from all over the country:
[When Ahmad Raza’s first grandson, Ibrahim Raza Khan, was born in 1907–8, Ahmad Raza] gave a great feast for everyone, including all the students of the Madrasa Ahl-i Sunnatwa
Jama’at Manzar-i Islam. The Bengali students were asked what they would like to eat, and they said fish and rice. Accordingly, Rohu fish was sent for, and they were fed as they had desired. We Bihari students asked for meat and rice (biryani), a spiced rice desert (zarda), a rice and milk pudding (firni), roast lamb (kabab), etc., and this was prepared with every care for the Bihari students.
The Panjabi and foreign students wanted fatty sheep’s meat (dumba) and hot baked bread. This was arranged for them. On this occasion, new suits of clothes had also been stitched for special friends (aziz) and disciples (murids). (Bihari 1938: 47) Nevertheless, after a few years Ahmad Raza was forced to withdraw from teaching because of the pressure of his scholarly pursuits, and the school suffered from lack of funds and consequently of teachers and facilities. These problems were exacerbated during the First World War and by the fact that Ahmad Raza and Hamid Raza were both averse to fund-raising. After Ahmad Raza’s death in 1921, the movement had to deal with the political upheavals of the period, including the Khilafat, Hijrat and Shuddhi movements, among others, culminating in 1947 in the creation of the independent state of Pakistan.
From the perspective of Ahl-i Sunnat followers, the history of the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam is intimately tied to this larger political context, in that some of its graduates or benefactors were later associated with the founding of other Ahli Sunnat organizations with an explicitly political purpose, and with support for Pakistan. Indeed, one writer says that when in 1940 the journey (marhala) of the Pakistan movement began, ulama and sufi shaykhs associated with the philosophy (maktaba-i fikr) of the Dar al-Ulum Bareilly spared no effort to guide (rahnuma’i) the community (qaum), and gave all they had (tan, man, dhan) toward the attainment of freedom and Islamic sovereignty. (Qadiri 2001: 34–5) He goes on to say that after the Muslim League ceased to call for Hindu–Muslim unity (a stand Ahmad Raza had consistently opposed on shari grounds), and Jinnah had begun to call for a separate Muslim state, Ahmad Raza’s khalifa Na’im al-Din Muradabadi formed the All India Sunni Conference to support his call and the ulama of the Ahl-i Sunnat became the ‘hands and arms’ (dast o bazu) of the Pakistan movement (Qadri 2001: 34–5). While Ahmad Raza had indeed opposed joint political action of any sort by Hindus and Muslims on shari grounds and the All India Sunni Conference did support the demand for the separate state of Pakistan, in my view the writer does not acknowledge that several important Ahl-i Sunnat leaders (such as the Barkatiyya sayyids of Marehra) were opposed to the Pakistan movement. His account, written from the vantage point of a Pakistani scholar, overemphasizes the role of the Ahl-i Sunnat ulama in the Pakistan movement while de-emphasizing their deeply felt political uncertainty and consequent lack of unity.
Looking back at the pre-Partition history of the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam, it is clear that it enjoyed a long period under the leadership of a single manager, Hamid Raza. For close to forty years, from 1904 or thereabouts until his death in 1943, he both taught at the school and managed it. He was helped by his nephew (hamshirzada), Hakim Ali Ahmad Khan, and Maulana Taqaddus Ali Khan, known as ‘Na’ib Sahib’, who was closely involved in the day-to-day management.
Unfortunately for the madrasa, the trauma of Partition coincided with Hamid Raza’s death a few years earlier (in 1943), followed by Na’ib Sahib’s decision to go to Pakistan. The school thus had a complete change of leadership in the mid-1940s, and appears to have gone through an acrimonious internal dispute over leadership (Latifi 2004: 152).
The next manager (muhtamim) was Hamid Raza’s eldest son, Ibrahim Raza Khan (d. 1965), known as Jilani Miyan. He made significant improvements in every department of the school and devoted the rest of his life to its management.
Apparently still facing internal opposition and hostility, he led it through difficult financial times – so much so that sometimes he paid teachers’ salaries by selling the jewellery of the women of his household. He is said to have been an excellent teacher who made his hadith lessons come alive, becoming totally engrossed in the spirit (ruhaniyyat) of ‘Imam Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj [d. 875] and Sahib-i Shifa’ Qazi Iyaz [d. 1149]’ and forgetting where he was (Latifi 2004: 153). He was especially fond of Shaykh Abd al-Haqq Muhaddith Dihlawi (d.
1642), one of the great hadith scholars of Mughal India and a staunch Qadiri (thesufi
order especially close to all Ahmad Raza’s family members and followers generally), reading his works frequently and ‘even deriving benefit from his gravesite’. He travelled extensively outside Bareilly (in Bihar and Nepal, especially) to raise funds and sent his students far and wide to spread the Ahl-i Sunnat’s influence. He also began a publications division (Markaz Ahl-i Sunnat) for the same purpose, and in December 1960 launched a monthly magazine called Ala Hazrat, the title by which Ahmad Raza Khan is known to his followers. (As noted above, this journal is thriving today under the editorship of Subhani Miyan.) Other journals had been started earlier, such as al-Raza, Yadgar-i Raza, and Radd-i Mirza’iyyat. But they had been short-lived (Yadgar-i Raza ceased publication upon Hamid Raza’s death in 1943) and there was a strongly felt need for a publication which would promote the Ahl-i Sunnat message in view of the fact that other Sunni groups were spreading what the Ahl-i Sunnat considered to be false and misleading views of Islam.
Another success during Ibrahim Raza’s leadership of the school was the hiring of an Egyptian graduate of al-Azhar to teach Arabic, thereby raising students’ Arabic-reading and speaking skills (Latifi 2004: 154–5; Gauhar n.d.:
208–15).
In 1948, Arabic and Persian exams recognized by Allahabad University were added, which gave the Manzar-i Islam’s certificate (sanad) greater weight than before and made it easier for its graduates to find jobs.
The next administrator, Rehan Raza Khan, known as Rehani Miyan (d. 1985), who was also the trustee (mutawalli) of the Khanqah Rizwiyya in keeping with his grandfather Hamid Raza Khan’s will, made great strides despite severe funding problems in the 1960s. (As in Ibrahim Raza’s time, he too on occasion had to pawn the family jewels in order to pay the madrasa’s teachers.) Family disputes also plagued the school. However, the financial situation improved slowly. Rehani Miyan travelled both in the country and abroad, spreading the Ahl-i Sunnat message by doing missionary work (tabligh) and raising funds for the school. Physical expansion of the school was undertaken, with the construction of a three-storey hostel (Rizvi Afriqi Hostel), and expansion of the adjacent mosque (Raza Masjid) (Latifi 2004: 157).
To improve the educational standards of the school, a constitution (dastur-i amal) was drawn up and adopted. The teaching staff was overhauled by reappointing the experienced Mufti Muhammad Ahmad Jahangir Sahib as Shaykh al-Hadith, and replacing teachers who had retired or were in ill health with younger ones. Rehani Miyan himself taught hadith classes whenever there was a shortage of teachers. In fact, at one time he had three Sri Lankan students who spoke fluent Arabic but didn’t speak any Urdu. He taught them Bukhari in Arabic. When they returned to Sri Lanka, they began a printing press which published Ahl-i Sunnat materials. It is still in operation today (ibid.:
157, 159).
There were two important landmarks in the early 1980s. First, in 1983, the Bihar Madrasa Education Board approved the Manzar-i Islam’s Dars-i Nizami syllabus. As a result of this, according to Muhammad Aijaz Anjum Latifi’s history of the madrasa, thousands of its graduates are now able to teach in Bihar and improve their financial situation. This in turn caused the madrasa to be sought after by students and led to a shortage of space, as there was no room for expansion. However, by a stroke of luck Rehani Miyan met a man called Muhammad Niyaz Ahmad Sheri who in 1984 (a year before Rehani Miyan’s death) donated fifty-one bighas or about thirty-two acres of land, outside Bareilly, in the form of a waqf, for the creation of a new madrasa to be called Jamia Qadiriyya. Given the lack of open space in the heart of the city, where Manzar-i Islam is located, this was a considerable gift (ibid.:
158).
The Madrasa today
At present, under the leadership of Subhan Raza Khan or Subhani Miyan, its fourth manager in its 100-year history, the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam has advanced to the point where, with the support of Ahl-i Sunnat members from abroad (in Britain, South Africa and Holland, specifically) as well as those in other parts of India, it has acquired the status of a dar al-ulum, higher in status than a madrasa, with new buildings, a hostel and so on. It has raised academic standards by requiring students to pass an entrance exam, sit for six-monthly and annual exams, impose minimum age requirements on graduates, and in other ways to conform to U.P. and other state board requirements for madrasas whose graduates’ qualifications it recognizes. The number of students has also increased (Latifi 2004: 162–3). Although I was unable to obtain definite numbers in terms of either the student body or the number of teachers, it appears to have between 200 and 300 students. This does not include the students at the Jamia Qadiriyya, mentioned above, or the Markaz al-Dirasat al-Islamiyya Jamia al-Raza, which is managed by Akhtar Raza Khan or Azhari Miyan, Rehani Miyan’s younger brother.
The Jamia Ashrafiyya, Mubarakpur
Early years
The Ahl-i Sunnat movement also had a number of other madrasas in other North Indian towns. After Partition, Ahl-i Sunnat ulama set up schools in Pakistan – in Lahore and Karachi as well as smaller towns. Currently their biggest school in India, which has the title of dar al-ulum, is in Mubarakpur, Azamgarh district, in east U.P (see also Arshad Alam, Chapter 3, this volume). It has about 1,500 students, including those resident at the school and local day scholars, and about 200 faculty and staff members, who teach at the Ashrafiyya and other madrasas in Mubarakpur associated with it. My account of the history and current status of this school is based on an Urdu history of it by an alim who has studied and taught there for several years, and whom I have known personally since the late 1980s. I will talk about him at the end of the chapter.
Mubarakpur, today a city with about 75,000 people, is largely Muslimdominated.
Its major economic activity is cloth weaving and the making of Banarasi saris. As a textile centre it attracts a lot of cloth merchants who come from distant places, and has close ties with the city of Banaras. There are a number of madrasas, catering to all the different religious affiliations: the Deobandi school is called Ihya al-Ulum, the school of the Ahl-i Hadith (whom the Ahl-i Sunnat call ‘ghair muqallid’, those who do not practice taqlid) is called Dar al-Ta’lim, and the Shia school is Bab al-Ilm, while the Bohras have no central school, as their children study in private homes. The Ahl-i Sunnat and Deobandis also have their own mosques.
The Ahl-i Sunnatschool
, the Jamia Ashrafiyya, began as a madrasa called Misbah al-Ulum in 1898 in the heart of the city. Its early history was turbulent.
In 1903, there was a severe plague in Mubarakpur which took many lives. Every household lost an average of three people, resulting in thousands of orphans.
Many of these children came to the Madrasa Misbah al-Ulum and its orphanage for shelter and began to study at the madrasa.
Soon the madrasa was beset with difficulties of another sort, when one of its teachers became a Deobandi and began to sow dissent within the ranks of the students and teachers alike. Anger grew over differences of opinion on a theological question:
the
problem of whether God can lie (imkan-i kizb) assumed a severe form. It was the belief of the Sunni students that the idea that God could tell a lie is absurd. Whereas under the influence of Maulvi Mahmud [the Deobandi alim], some students were saying that it was possible. This matter grew and grew until the Madrasa Misbah al-Ulum became a victim of vicious conspiracies and in 1329 A.H. [approx.
1911] it even closed down. The Deobandis began their own madrasa called Ihya al-Ulum. (Misbahi 2000: 17) After many changes of venue, the Deobandis finally established their madrasa in a different section of the city, where they set up a large building and where they operate today.
Meanwhile, the Madrasa Misbah al-Ulum struggled for several years, moving from one location to another and changing its name several times. Conflict with the Deobandis was revived when, in about 1917, Maulana Shukrallah Mubarakpuri, a graduate of the Dar al-Ulum at Deoband, returned to Mubarakpur and separated his followers from all the other Muslims who had so far offered their Friday prayers and celebrated the two ‘ids together at the same Jamia Masjid. The imam of this mosque was a teacher at the Madrasa Misbah al-Ulum, an alim ‘in the old mode’, who loved the Qasida Burda, the Mathnawi of Rumi, and mahfil-i milad – in other words, one who would identify as a ‘Barelwi’ rather than a ‘Deobandi’ alim. According to Yasin Akhtar Misbahi, Maulana Shukrallah also got the wealthy people of Mubarakpur on his side, thereby dividing the people into two hostile camps and leaving the Ahl-i Sunnat in a weakened position.
To counter this dire situation, in 1934 two Ahl-i Sunnat ulama who were themselves students and/or disciples of Ahmad Raza Khan (Maulanas Amjad Ali A’zami Rizwi and Sayyid Muhammad Ashrafi Kachchochwi) invited a person they trusted to go to the Madrasa Misbah al-Ulum and put it on a sound footing. He was a former student of the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam at Bareilly and a disciple of Amjad Ali A’zami, and his name was Hafiz Abd al-Aziz Muradabadi.
In Muradabad, his hometown, he received a letter from Amjad Ali A’zami calling him to Bareilly for a meeting. Accordingly, he went as asked:
[Amjad Ali] told him, ‘I am sending you to Mubarakpur to perform a religious service (khidmat-i din ke liye).’ He protested: ‘Sir, I don’t want a job (mulazamat).’ [Amjad Ali] said: ‘Who said anything about a job? I’m talking about service. I’m sending you to Mubarakpur. Don’t think of what you will get. All you have to do there is religious service.’ With these instructions, he arrived in Mubarakpur on the 7th or 8th of February 1934, for the purpose of religious service. (Misbahi 2000: 20) Because of his continuous service over the next forty years at the madrasa, he is remembered as ‘Hafiz-i Millat’, protector of the community, muhaddith (a master of hadith), and founder of the Jamia Ashrafiyya. He died in 1976.
Consolidation and growth: 1934–72
When Abd al-Aziz came to Mubarakpur, he brought two teachers with him. There were five teachers already in place, who taught the Qur’an (that is, the students studied it, as opposed to rote memorization), mathematics, and other subjects at the elementary level. But soon students began to arrive from outside Mubarakpur and the numbers began to grow. This led to renewed conflict with the Deobandis, and for four months there was continuous debate and counterdebate between them.
After this had died down, Abd al-Aziz began to raise funds for the construction of a new building. Despite their general poverty, the people of Mubarakpur (‘Sunni’Muslims, that
is) gave generously, women even giving their jewellery.
In two months, about Rs 10,000 was collected, which enabled construction to begin on a two-storey building. The construction took ten years. This was the site for the school, now called the Dar al-Ulum Ahl-i Sunnat or Misbah al-Ulum, for close to forty years, until the early 1970s. Today there is a five-storey building in its place (the old building was razed to the ground in the early 1970s). It is occupied on the lower two floors by shops, and on the upper floors by the office of the Ashrafiyya monthly magazine, classrooms for a nursery school, a large hall for congregational prayers, and a classroom for Qur’an study (hifz al- Qur’an). The building itself is called Bagh-i Firdaus, ‘Heavenly Garden’, a name chosen to reflect the year of its founding (1353 A.H. or 1935), based on the abjad system which assigns each letter of the alphabet a numerical value.
Among other changes introduced by Maulana Abd al-Aziz was the studentrun Anjuman Ahl-i Sunnat, which, through its elected student committee, organized an annual procession in Mubarakpur during milad al-nabi, the Prophet’s birthday. The students also began a Reading Room (dar al-mutala’a), which contained books and periodicals for circulation. Several construction and other projects followed: among them, reconstruction of the mosque in 1951; foundation of the Sunni Dar al-Isha’at or publications department in 1959, which over the next several years published volumes three to eight of Ahmad Raza Khan’s fatwas (twelve volumes were projected altogether, containing approximately 1,000 fatwas); and the start of the Ashrafiyya Girls’ School in 1967.
The level of local participation by the people of Mubarakpur appears to have been high. Until 1944, all the money for construction came from the townspeople.
Not only did people donate generously at periodic intervals toward the construction of the madrasa and a new mosque, but some of them also took responsibility for feeding students from outside Mubarakpur who came as boarders. The students were fed twice a day at their homes and treated like members of the family. This unique arrangement continued even after the number of outside students had grown sufficiently large to require the setting up of a central kitchen. Some students enjoyed this relationship with a given family for ten years. This ‘jagir’ system, as it was called (the person doing the feeding was called a mujgir), was unique to Mubarakpur, though it is no longer practised (Misbahi 2000: 27–8).
Maulana Abd al-Aziz, founder of the Dar al-Ulum Ashrafiyya
Steady growth during the approximately forty years of stewardship by Maulana Abd al-Aziz led to the realization that the premises were becoming too small, and in May 1972 he organized an educational conference (the first in a series of such conferences) to discuss moving the Ashrafiyya to a larger campus.
Although he died four years later, before his vision could be realized in concrete terms, he is understandably credited with being the founder of the Jamia Ashrafiyya. The foundation stone for the Jamia Ashrafiyya was laid in 1972
amid
great fanfare at a site outside the city of Azamgarh. Among the guests of honour at the ceremony were Maulana Mustafa Raza Khan (d. 1981), younger son of Ahmad Raza Khan of Bareilly, who was known to followers as ‘Mufti-i Azam-i Hind’, and, second in importance, a member of the family of Barkatiyya sayyids from Marehra to which Ahmad Raza Khan was affiliated by virtue of sufi discipleship.
The importance of the occasion was highlighted by Maulana Mustafa Raza Khan, when he said in his speech that he hoped the Dar al-Ulum Ashrafiyya would become the leading ‘Sunni’ university in India. Although no mention was made of the Dar al-Ulum at Deoband, undoubtedly the challenge posed by this institution was foremost in the minds of the Ashrafiyya’s founders. A two-storey building for classrooms was soon built, followed by a magnificent dome.
Construction on the forty-acre plot, which now houses a number of other buildings, started in 1992. The old site in the city centre became ancillary to this main campus.
The sense of corporate unity symbolized by the addition of the name (nisba) ‘Misbahi’ by all those who have been associated with the Ashrafiyya is remarkable.
As Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi writes in his history of the school:
One feels proud to be known as Misbahi. ‘Misbahi’ refers to an alim who has had the good fortune of being part of the Ashrafiyya, receiving his formal education and training there. May Allah shower His blessings and grace on the grave of Hafiz-i Millat. It is the result of his untiring efforts and brilliant guidance and training that . the ‘ulama’ of this madrasa are . leading the community to the straight path. (Misbahi 2000, English translation, modified, 9) In the past, nisbas have referred to a person’s place of birth,sufi
affiliation or specific line of discipleship to a particular line of sufi shaykhs (thus, in Ahmad Raza’s case, he was called ‘Barelwi, Qadiri, Barkati’ after his name proper). In contrast, the term Misbahi refers to a formal institution rather than a town,sufi
order or family of sufi shaykhs. It transcends loyalty to place or person and replaces it with loyalty to an institution. The history on which the facts reported here rely includes a list of ulamawho
have graduated from the Ashrafiyya and have contributed to the spread of its ideas in other parts of the subcontinent and abroad, including Europe, North America and South Africa.
Jamia Ashrafiyya, 1990s to the present
The Jamia is run by a managing committee (majlis intizami) which has sixteen office bearers and several members drawn from the town of Mubarakpur. The present president or head (sadr) of the Jamia Ashrafiyya is Maulana Abd al- Hafeez Muradabadi. Below him are a vice president (na’ib-i sadr) and three managers (one nazim-i a’la and two na’ib-i nazims). In addition, there is an Advisory Committee of forty-nine members, the leader of which is Mufti Akhtar Raza Khan Azhari (Azhari Miyan), grandson of Hamid Raza Khan. Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi is also currently on the Advisory Committee.
In addition to its primary and secondary schools, the Ashrafiyya has a Department of Memorization and Recitation of the Qur’an (hifzwa
tajwid), in which students learn Qur’an recitation according to recognized principles of tajwid.
Students receive three certificates at the end of this course of study: one of these is for memorizing the Qur’an, and the two others are for tajwid. This course takes six years.
After this preparatory stage, students start an eight-year course, the syllabus of which is modelled on the Dars-iNizami,
though it incorporates modifications (see Appendix, Table 2.2). After six years of this course – during which they study approximately forty different subjects, including four languages (Persian grammar and literature, Urdu literature, Arabic grammar and literature, and English grammar and literature), the natural sciences, mathematics, geography, history, logic and philosophy, polemics (radda), and the religious sciences (fiqh, usul-i fiqh, sirat, hadith, tafsir or exegesis of the Qur’an, and the like), and write a research paper – students receive an Alimiyya Certificate (alimiyyat ki sanad), which makes them eligible for entry into either Lucknow University or Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, as first year B.A. students. Other possibilities (open to the best-performing students, usually) are Hamdard University in Delhi or Aligarh Muslim University. If they choose to stay on, however, after another two years they receive a Fazil Certificate. In these two years, they study some new subjects such as the science of the miraculous nature of the Qur’an and its secret meaning (ilm-i asrar), the study of fatwa collections, in addition to secular subjects such as political science and cultural history, a comparison of Islamic and man-made laws, and a research paper on a selected topic.
There are six-monthly and annual exams in every class. The final exam consists of a viva followed by a written exam. Students pass by getting marks in either the first, second, or third division. A student who fails (i.e. gets below 33
per
cent) has to retake the class the following year. Academic standards are high, and the exams are demanding of students: typically a student has to study intensely for a month and a half before an exam. Because of its high standards the madrasa enjoys a good reputation and is in great demand: every year about 1,400 students apply for admission. Of these, between 300 and 400 are accepted, depending on the space available (Misbahi, personal communication, July 2005). Students have gone on to become teachers in other madrasas around the country, as well as muftis, and are said to be in great demand. Its graduates have also migrated to other countries, where they work as teachers and activists-cumcommunity workers. Lower performers tend to stay close to their hometowns, where they become imams of mosques or teachers in local madrasas.
The Ashrafiyya has a number of libraries. The oldest one, the Dar al- Mutala’a, run by students, has already been mentioned. The Central Library, which caters to students’ needs and has books in all the subjects they need to study, lends out textbooks to students at the beginning of the school year (in the month of Shawwal), and takes them back after the final exams, before the students go home for the holidays (from Sha’ban through the whole of Ramadan and the first half of Shawwal). The practice of lending textbooks to students during the school year helps those for whom buying their own textbooks is an economic hardship.
There is also a library that specializes in Arabic books on prose and poetry (Maktabat al-Lugha al-Arabiyya), and another dealing with Islamic law, attached to the Dar al-Ifta’. Finally, there is a Computer Centre, equipped with twenty computers and staffed by three full-time teachers to teach students programming and other computer skills.
The Sunni Dar al-Isha’at or publications department was one of the first departments to be set up. Its major publication is the Ashrafiyya monthly magazine, which has an editorial staff and office in the old campus, the one started by Maulana Abd al-Aziz in the 1940s. The Dar al-Isha’at’s major project was the publication of several volumes of Ahmad Raza Khan’s fatwas, which had been only partially published in the fifty years since his death in 1921. Today it has a number of publications to its credit, including some in English.
The new campus of the Jamia Ashrafiyya has many facilities and buildings. A total of 175 students are divided into sections of about 30 per section. During the school day, a student has between six or seven class periods, each of which lasts about forty-five minutes. Students sit on the floor, about thirty to a class in the more junior classes and more as they progress to the higher grades. In the evening, they play football and volleyball between the late afternoon (asr
) and evening (maghrib) prayers. Other non-academic activities include a weekly gathering (bazm) for the recitation of poetry in praise of the Prophet (na’tkhwani) and debates (taqrirwa
tahrir). Either every fifteen days or every month, there is also a wall magazine. Although these activities are voluntary, students who shine in them receive much praise and encouragement (for more on these activities, see Alam, Chapter 3, this volume).
The hostel has two buildings, each with about 250 rooms. Each room houses six students. Although fees are charged for some students (not all, as the hifz students do not pay fees, and they also receive food from the school administration at reduced rates), the school meets most of its financial needs from donations (chanda) from local people and others. These are usually given during the two big festivals, Id al-azha and Id al-fitr, and during Ramadan in the form of zakat and sadaqa (gift, donation). The U.P. state government also gives limited financial assistance, paying the monthly salaries of a third of the total staff (fifty out of 150 teachers and staff). The school also has some assets in the form of rent from the shops it owns.
The Dar al-Ifta’ handles legal questions from followers far and wide. It is equipped with computers, and has a specialized library. For twenty-four years (1976–2000), until his death in 2000, the head of this department was Mufti Sharif al-Haqq Amjadi. However, by the early 1990s the ulama began to feel a strong need to collaborate to address serious issues raised by new scientific discoveries and inventions which they felt were beyond the capacity of a single alim to resolve, and to try to come up with answers that would guide their people in the light of the Qur’an, hadith and principles of fiqh. For this, they created a Council of Islamic Jurisprudence (majlis-i sharia), which was responsible for organizing annual seminars where papers would be read and discussed, and an attempt made to come to a consensus on specific issues. Between 1993
and
2000, nine seminars (at a cost of over Rs 1 lakh each, paid for entirely by the Jamia without recourse to loans) have been held. The topics addressed have included a number of economic and medical issues, such as the legal status of medicines containing alcohol and artificial colour additives, life and property insurance, partnership in joint investment companies and the purchase of shares, the problem of illegal fees (‘pagri’), zakat on debts and the profits made on loans, organ transplants, blood transfusion, the purchase and sale of blood, and blood banks, among other things. Sometimes several seminars are required, including review of an issue by the paper-writers and Council of Ulama. The Council tries hard to come to a conclusion on an issue so that guidance can be given to the community. This process is also a valuable means of training younger ulama in debating and eliciting answers to difficult issues in light of Hanafi law.
Other institutions include the Hafiz-i Millat Research Institute (Idara-i tahqiqat hafiz-i millat), which was founded in 1989, and which undertakes research and publication on the lives and achievements of Maulana Abd al-Aziz, the Jamia Ashrafiyya itself, and other ulama associated with it. So far it has held a seminar on the former head of the Dar al-Ifta’ Mufti Sharif al-Haqq Amjadi and another on Maulana Abd al-Aziz (‘Hafiz-i millat’) and has published its findings in books on these important figures.
Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi
The preceding account of the Jamia Ashrafiyya is based on an Urdu history of the school by one of its former students and later a teacher of Arabic literature there for eight years. I met and worked with him in New Delhi when doing fieldwork for my dissertation in the 1980s. I called him ‘Misbahi Sahib’, not knowing then that ‘Misbahi’ represented his association with the Jamia Ashrafiyya.
Maulana Yasin Akhtar Misbahi’s resumé illustrates the possibilities opened up to graduates of the Jamia Ashrafiyya in recent years. He wears many hats: he is a teacher, a journalist, a writer, an organizer, and a religious leader. Born in 1953 in the district of Azamgarh, he went on to complete the full course of studies at the Ashrafiyya, obtaining his Fazil degree in 1970. He began to study for a B.A. at Lucknow University, but decided to opt out and study for the Arabic and Persian Board exams in Allahabad, U.P. He taught at a madrasa in Allahabad while studying for his board exams. In 1974, after passing the exams, he began to teach Arabic literature at Jamia Ashrafiyya.Then followed two years in Saudi Arabia (1982–4) for intensive Arabic language study and free time to write, and two years as a teacher of Islamic Studies (Islamiyyat) at Jamia Millia Islamia in Delhi (1988–90).
Since the 1990s he has been active in many different organizations to further the Ahl-i Sunnat point of view, travelling both in India and abroad (in Britain, South Africa and Pakistan), writing books and editing journals, addressing large audiences, and establishing foundations. In 1985 he became one of the vice presidents of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board at a time when the Shah Bano controversy in India raised the issue about creating a single personal law for all religious communities. In 1991 he founded, and became the director of, a research and writing centre called the Dar al-Qalam in Delhi. This centre occu- pies much of his time today, as well as the monthly journal Kanz al-Iman, of which he is the chief editor. It is published in Urdu and Hindi. He is also the chairman of the All India Majlis-i Mushawwarat, which debates issues of current concern.
Since the 1990s, Yasin Akhtar Misbahi has expanded the scope of his activities, becoming known at the regional and national levels for his work on specific political causes. In 2000, he was among a group of Muslim leaders from different organizations who presented a memorandum voicing their concerns about attacks against Muslims in Maharashtra State to Sonia Gandhi, Congress Party president, and asking for the dismissal of the chief minister, Narayan Rane,then
of the Shiv Sena (he has since switched to the Congress Party). In 2002, Misbahi joined with Muslim leaders once again in asking for a thorough probe of anti-Muslim riots in Gujarat and the dismissal of Gujarat’s Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) chief minister Narendra Modi. Failure to do so, they said, would compel them to ‘take the issue to the International Court of Justice, Amnesty International and [the] Human Rights Commission of the United Nations’ (Milli Gazette 2002: 3). In 2004, he and other Muslim leaders discussed their alarm at the low rate of Muslim representation in government departments nationwide (only 1.5 per cent, according to a government survey), and in March, he urged secular Indian parties to come together to defeat the BJP in the national elections held later that year.
In short, Yasin Akhtar Misbahi is a modern intellectual and activist of the Ahl-i Sunnatwa
Jama’at. His activities cross boundaries, going beyond the religious in a narrow sense to encompass social and political issues of concern to his community.
Conclusion
The Jamia Ashrafiyya is actively trying to expand and modernize its syllabus, within the parameters of the Dars-i Nizami, so as to gain state recognition of its certification and deal with the challenges arising from modernization and its associated economic pressures. The Madrasa Manzar-i Islam has had more continuity of leadership than the Jamia Ashrafiyya over the past 100 years, though today it is in the second tier of madrasas, compared to the Jamia Ashrafiyya, which has become the leading Ahl-i Sunnat teaching institution in South Asia in the last twenty years. The Ashrafiyya has a strong emphasis on teaching Arabic, so as to give students direct access to Arabic-language books, including of course the Qur’an. It also offers English instruction to its students over several years. Moreover, it is clearly trying to provide leadership to its followers on practical issues through the judgments made on an ongoing basis by the Council of Islamic Jurisprudence.
The Madrasa Manzar-i Islam is closely related to Bareilly being the home of Ahmad Raza Khan, and since his death the site of his khanqah with its associatedsufi
activities. It has enormous symbolic importance to the Ahl-i Sunnat movement on account of this association. There has clearly been a good deal of family dissension over the position of manager (muhtamim), which has so far gone in a continuous line of descent from Hamid Raza Khan to his eldest son, and so on. The Ashrafiyya, on the other hand, has no historical attachment to its specific location. This may in fact have been a source of strength, as it was created from scratch by a small number of people who provided strong leadership. Furthermore, it is a centre of learning only, not competing for attention with sufi-related institutions.
Both have struggled financially. They have been driven to overcome these problems by the perception that should they fail, their ‘Sunni’ perspective will be lost, given the competition posed by the Deobandis, Ahl-i Hadith, and others. Since the 1980s, they have been at a relative disadvantage compared to their rivals – especially the Nadwat al-Ulama and the Ahl-i Hadith, but also to some extent Deobandis – who have benefited from Saudi Arabian munificence and generosity (on the Nadwa’s relationship with the Arab world in general and the Saudi kingdom in particular, see Hartung 2006a; on the Ahl-i Hadith and Deoband, see Zaman 2002: 175–6). The Ahl-i Sunnat have been excluded from close relations with the Saudis on account of their strong denunciation of all forms of ‘Wahhabism’, and particularly their association withsufi
ritual and belief. They have had to rely on their own resources, mainly drawn from the local population, but also including followers in other parts of the country and, occasionally, abroad (they have a strong presence in the United Kingdom in particular, on which see Lewis 1994). In overall terms, therefore, the Ahl-i Sunnat have a smaller presence in terms of South Asian madrasas than the other groups, though they firmly believe that the local Muslim population is of their persuasion rather than that of their rivals.
Appendix
Table 2.1 Books taught at the Madrasa Manzar-i Islam
First year
Grammar-etymology: Mizan (Muhammad ibn Mustafa, taught in Bursa and Istanbul, d. 1505–6), Munsha’ib, Panj-ganj (Mahmud Kashmiri) Syntax: Nahw mir (Mir Sayyid Sharif Jurjani, d. 1413) Persian: Gulistan (Sa’di, d. 1292), Bustan (Sa’di), Faiz al-adab, first book Logic: Kubra (Mir Sayyid Sharif Jurjani, d. 1413)
Second year
Persian Grammar: Tashil al-masadir, Amadnama (Fazl-i Imam Khairabadi) Persian: Farsi ki pahli o dusri kitab (Mufti Muhammad Ashraf al-Qadri) Elementary Urdu: Ta’mir-i adab, part 5 Arabic: Manhaj al-arabiyya Jurisprudence (fiqh): Qanun-i shariat, first book
Third year
Syntax: Kafiyya (Ibn Hajib, d. 1248) Jurisprudence: Quduri (Ahmad ibn Muhammad Quduri of Baghdad, d. 1036–7. Glosses by many Ottoman scholars) Principles of Jurisprudence: Usul al-shashi Arabic Grammar: Fusul kubra Arabic Literature: Qalauji Logic: Mirqat
Fourth year
Grammar (commentary): Sharh jami (Commentary on Kafiyya by Mulla Jami of Herat, d. 1492) Jurisprudence (commentary): Sharh-i wuqayah (Commentary by Ubayd Allah ibn Masud, d. 1346–7) Logic (commentary): Sharh-i tahzib (Commentary by Najm al-Din Abd Allah Qazdi, d. 1606) Principles of Jurisprudence: Nur al-anwar (Commentary by Mulla Jiwan of Amethi, d. 1718, on Abd Allah Nasafi’s [d. 1310] Kitab al-manar) Laws of Inheritance (ilm-i fara’iz): Siraji Philosophy: Hidayat al-hikmat
Fifth year
Exegesis of the Qur’an (tafsir): Jalalain, first book (A commentary in two parts, one by Jalal al-Din Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Shafi’i [d.1459] and the second by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti [d. 1505]) Hadith: Muwatta-i Imam Malik Rhetoric: Majanil al-adab Arabic Poetry (anthology): Azhar al-arab wa insha’ Principles of Jurisprudence: Talkhis al-muqtam Logic: Qutbi (Qutb al-Din Razi, d. 1364–5) Philosophy: Hidayat al-saidiya (Fazl-i Haqq Khairabadi)
Sixth year
Hadith: Mishkat, first book (Shah Wali al-Din Abu Abd Allah al-Khatib) Exegesis of the Qur’an (tafsir): Jalalain, last book Scholastics (ilm al-kalam): Sharh aqa’id Principles of Jurisprudence: Mulla Hasan (Mulla Hasan Farangi Mahalli, eighteenth century, commentary on Musallam al-thubut) Arabic Literature and Composition: Diwan-i mutanabbi Arabic Literature: Manshurat Jurisprudence: Hidaya, first book (Burhan al-Din Marghinani, d. 1196)
Seventh year
Hadith: Mishkat, last book Principles of Jurisprudence: Musallam al-thubut (Muhibb Allah Bihari, d. 1707–8); Tauzih wa talwih Scholastics: al-Mu’taqad Rhetoric: Mukhtasar al-ma’ni Philosophy and Logic (commentary): Mulla Jalal (Mir Muhammad Zahid al-Harawi’s gloss on Jalal al-Din Dawwani’s commentary on Sa’d al-Din Taftazani’s Tahzib al-mantiq wa-l kalam) Philosophy (hikmat): Hamd Allah (Commentary by Hamd Allah Sandilawi, eighteenth century, on Muhibb Allah Bihari’s Sullam al-Ulum) (Subject unidentified): Mazi
Eighth year
Hadith: Bukhari, Muslim, Tirmidhi Jurisprudence: Hidaya, last book (Burhan al-Din Marghinani) Qur’an (commentary): Baidawi
Sources: Salim Allah Jandaran, ‘Manzar al-Islam ka tarikhi tanazur men aghaz wa irtiqa’, in Mahnama Ma’rif-e Raza, Sad Sala Jashn Dar al-Ulum Manzar-i Islam Number, p. 84. (Additional information about subjects and authors obtained from Francis Robinson,The
Ulama of Farangi Mahall (2001), G.M.D. Sufi, Al-Minhaj (1941) and Jamal Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien. Entwicklungsgeschichte und Tendenzen am Beispiel von Lucknow (1997), pp. 71–6, and App. 1–3.)My sincere thanks to Jan-Peter Hartung, Arshad Alam, and Tahsin Khan for their help with some of the titles.
Table 2.2 Books taught at the Jamia Ashrafiyya, Mubarakpur
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Author: Jamal Malik
