Haji Shariatullah

Haji Shariatullah (1781–1840) was a Bengali Islamic reformer, founder of the Faraizi movement, born at Shamail in Faridpur and formed by some two decades at Makkah from 1799 ^{1 2}.

Orphaned young and raised by an uncle, he ran away to Calcutta at twelve, learned Arabic and Persian under Maulana Basharat Ali, and in 1799 accompanied his teacher to Makkah ¹. There he studied fiqh under the Hanafi jurist Tahir al-Sumbal Makki, who introduced him to tasawwuf and the Qadiriyya ¹; Banglapedia tells the sequel — his first preaching on returning in 1818 failed, he went back to Makkah, and Taher Sombal initiated him into the Qadiriyah Tariqah and sent him back in 1820, after which the movement caught fire ². His Faraizi teaching called Bengali Muslims to the obligatory duties — prayer, zakat, fasting, hajj — to pure tawhid, and away from customs he judged shirk and bid'a; from the Hedaya he declared British India dar al-harb and suspended the Friday and Eid congregations, which brought him detention and the hostility of landlords and indigo planters ^{2 3}. He died in 1840 and his only son Dudu Miyan succeeded him at the movement's head ³.

His faith is recorded in two segments. Sunni Hanafi, documented — the English article gives his jurisprudence as Hanafi and says his movement reformed Bengali practice on the basis of the Hanafi school ¹, and Banglapedia states in text that the Faraizis adhered to the Hanafi school and that he himself ruled in pursuance of the Hanafi law ³. Sufi, documented — his initiation into the Qadiriyya by his own teacher is attested for the man himself in both the English article and Banglapedia ^{1 2}, and his edge to the Qadiriyya stands in his record. His preaching against pir-worship and innovation belongs to the same sources and does not undo the initiation they record.

His birth year is debated — the English and Arabic articles, Banglapedia and Wikidata give 1781, while the Urdu article's lead gives 1764 from Abd al-Hayy Lakhnawi's Nuzhat al-Khawatir, against its own categories ^{1 4 5}. The English article places his death at Bahadurpur in Faridpur and his burial in his home's backyard; Wikidata's Dhaka as place of death is not followed ⁵. Faridpur and Bahadurpur have no museum place records yet, so no place edges are recorded.