Mahmud Hasan Deobandi

Mahmud Hasan Deobandi (1851–1920), known by the title Shaykh al-Hind ("the Leader of India"), was an Indian Muslim scholar and an activist of the Indian independence movement. He was the first student to enrol at Darul Uloom Deoband, and later taught there and served as its principal (head teacher) from 1890 to 1915. ^{1 2}

He led the Silk Letter Movement, which sought to overthrow British rule in India with Ottoman and Afghan support; he was arrested in the Hejaz in 1916 and imprisoned in Malta until 1920. After his release the Khilafat Committee honoured him with the title Shaykh al-Hind; he co-founded Jamia Millia Islamia and presided over the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind in the last days of his life. ¹

His works include an Urdu translation of the Qur'an completed by his student Shabbir Ahmad Usmani as the well-known Tafsir-e-Usmani, and polemical defences of the Hanafi school such as Adilla-e-Kamilah and Izah al-Adillah. ^{1 3}

He was born in 1851 in the town of Bareilly (in modern Uttar Pradesh) into the Usmani family of Deoband. His father, Zulfiqar Ali Deobandi, was a professor at Bareilly College and then deputy inspector of madrasas, and a co-founder of Darul Uloom Deoband. ^{1 3}

He studied the Qur'an with Miyanji Manglori and Persian with Abdul Lateef. During the rebellion of 1857 his father was transferred to Meerut and the boy was moved to Deoband, where he studied Persian and Arabic literature from the Dars-e-Nizami course with his uncle Mahtab Ali Deobandi. ¹

He became the first student at Darul Uloom Deoband and studied with Mahmud Deobandi. He completed his formal studies in 1869, went to Meerut to study the six canonical hadith collections (Sihah Sittah) with Muhammad Qasim Nanawtawi, attended Nanawtawi's hadith discourses for two years, graduated in 1872 and received the turban of honour at the seminary's first convocation in 1873. ^{1 2}

In Sufism he was an authorised disciple of Imdadullah Muhajir Makki and of Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, in the Chishti–Sabiri–Imdadi line. ^{1 2}

He was appointed a teacher at Darul Uloom Deoband in 1873, the year he completed his studies, and became its principal in 1890, succeeding Syed Ahmad Dehlavi, holding the post until 1915. He did not consider the seminary just a place of learning, but an institution established to compensate for the loss of 1857. ¹

In 1878 he formed the Thamratut-Tarbiyat ("Fruit of the Upbringing"), an intellectual centre to train the seminary's students and graduates; it later took the form of the Jamiatul Ansar (1909). With his student Ubaidullah Sindhi he founded the Nizaratul Ma'arif al-Qur'aniyya in November 1913, to instruct English-educated Muslims in the Qur'an in a logical way that would remove the impact of anti-Islam propaganda and scepticism. ¹

Hasan wanted to overthrow the British Raj in India and focused on two fronts: the autonomous tribal belt between Afghanistan and India, worked by his students and companions such as Ubaidullah Sindhi and Muhammad Mian Mansoor Ansari; and India itself, where he enlisted sincere leaders to the cause. The movement's plans were carried in letters written on silk, from which it took its name. ¹

He travelled himself to the Hejaz in 1915 to secure German and Turkish support, leaving Bombay on 18 September 1915, meeting Ghalib Pasha, the Turkish governor, and Anwar Pasha, the minister of war, in Mecca, receiving assurances and three letters, and meeting Djemal Pasha, the governor of Syria. ¹

The programme was then leaked and its members arrested. Hasan was arrested in December 1916, with his students Hussain Ahmad Madani and Uzair Gul Peshawari, by Sharif Husayn of Mecca, who had revolted against the Turks and allied with the British; the Sharif handed them to the British, and they were imprisoned in Fort Verdala in Malta. ^{1 3}

He was released in May 1920 and reached Bombay on 8 June 1920, welcomed by leading scholars and political figures including Mahatma Gandhi. His release was seen as a great aid to the Khilafat movement, and the Khilafat Committee honoured him with the title "Shaykh al-Hind" (the Leader of India). ¹

He issued a religious edict supporting the Non-cooperation movement, advising students to boycott government schools and colleges and avoid government jobs; a majority of the students of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College left after it. He then toured Allahabad, Fatehpur, Ghazipur, Faizabad, Lucknow and Moradabad, guiding Muslims in support of the movements. ¹

Asked to preside over the founding ceremony of Jamia Millia Islamia, he accepted despite his weakness after Malta: "If my president-ship pains the British, then I shall definitely take part in this ceremony." He was carried in a palanquin to Deoband railway station and travelled to Aligarh; his student Shabbir Ahmad Usmani prepared his presidential speech, which he corrected and improved, and which was read aloud at the founding ceremony on 29 October 1920, after which he laid the university's foundation stone. ¹

In November 1920 he presided over the second general meeting of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind in Delhi and was appointed its president — a position he held only days. His presidential speech, again read by Usmani, advocated Hindu–Muslim–Sikh unity. It was the last conference he attended. ¹

• The translation of the Qur'an (Tarjuma Shaykh al-Hind): an interlinear Urdu translation, to which he began adding exegetical notes; he had completed the fourth chapter, An-Nisa, when he died. His student Shabbir Ahmad Usmani completed the work, published as Tafsir-e-Usmani; it was later translated into Persian under the patronage of Mohammed Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan. ¹
• Al-Abwab wa al-Tarajim li'l-Bukhari: a treatise on the science of the chapter-headings of Sahih al-Bukhari, begun during his incarceration in Malta; it sets out fifteen principles and covers the chapters on revelation and, incompletely, on knowledge, over 52 pages. ¹
• Adilla-e-Kamilah ("The Perfect Argument"): written when the Ahl-i Hadith scholar Muhammad Hussain Batalvi circulated ten questions challenging the authority of the Hanafi school with a cash reward; Hasan, at his teacher Nanawtawi's request, answered with a counter-set of questions, promising twenty rupees per answer. ¹
• Izah al-Adillah ("Elucidation of the Argument"): his commentary on the preceding work, answering Ahmad Hasan Amrohwi's Misbah al-Adillah. ¹
• Ahsan al-Qira: a lengthy defence of his teacher Gangohi's fatwa on the Friday prayer in villages, written from the Hanafi perspective against its Ahl-i Hadith critics. ¹
• Juhd al-Muqill: two volumes on the attributes of God in the terminology of kalam, following al-Taftazani's commentary on al-Nasafi's creed, defending Shah Ismail Dehlvi and others accused of extremism and unbelief. ¹
• Tashih Abu Dawud: his copyediting of Sunan Abu Dawud from the surviving manuscripts, published from the Mujtabai Press in Delhi in 1900. ¹

This section reports what the sources record of his belief and affiliation, without a verdict from the museum. The English article's religious-biography infobox gives his denomination as Sunni and his jurisprudence as Hanafi. The Arabic article's infobox, edited independently, gives the sect as Ahl al-Sunna wa'l-Jama'a (the Sunni community) and the madhhab as Hanafi, and adds the creed: Maturidi. The Urdu article's infobox likewise gives Sunni and Hanafi, and its categories file him among Maturidi personalities, as does the English article's apparatus. The museum therefore records the value sunni-hanafi as documented, with the Maturidi creed stated here and in the data note only, because the classification system does not combine creed and madhhab in a single value. ^{1 3 2}

His Deobandi affiliation is recorded in his data record as a relation to the Deobandi movement — an institutional and movement affiliation on which the school attestation does not rest. His Sufi line (Chishtiyya–Sabiriyya–Imdadiyya) and his authorisation by Imdadullah Muhajir Makki and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi are recorded in the English and Urdu articles, and the museum records a documented Sufi affiliation and the relation to the Chishti order. ^{1 2}

Wikidata records his religion as Islam only, without a school. ⁴

On 30 October 1920, a day after the founding of Jamia Millia Islamia, he travelled to Delhi at the request of Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari; several days later his health deteriorated and he was treated at Ansari's home in Daryaganj. He died on 30 November 1920 in Delhi. ¹

On the news of his death, Hindus and Muslims closed their shops and gathered outside Ansari's house to pay tribute. His funeral prayers were offered repeatedly — in Delhi, at Meerut's stations, and finally at Deoband, led by his brother Hakeem Muhammad Hasan — and he was buried in the Qasmi cemetery beside the grave of his teacher Muhammad Qasim Nanawtawi, as he had wished. ¹

Ashraf Ali Thanwi called him "Shaykh al-'Alam" (the Leader of the World) and said: "In our opinion, he is the Leader of India, Sindh, the Arab and the Ajam." A medical college in Saharanpur and the Shaikhul Hind Academy at Darul Uloom Deoband are named for him, and in January 2013 the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee, released a commemorative postal stamp on the Silk Letter Movement. ¹

• English Wikipedia article on Mahmud Hasan Deobandi (revision 1394762463); Arabic Wikipedia article «محمود حسن الديوبندي» (revision 71235900); Urdu Wikipedia article (revision 13230924); Wikidata item Q6734521.
• The sources do not materially conflict on his biography. The Arabic article is very short; the detailed narrative follows the English and Urdu articles, which rest on published scholarly biographies (Adrawi 2012; Rizwi 1980–81; Tayyab 1990).