Shah Ahmad Noorani

Shah Ahmad Noorani (1926 – 11 December 2003) was a Pakistani Islamic scholar and politician, the son of Muhammad Abdul Aleem Siddiqi and the leading figure of the Barelvi movement in Pakistan.¹ He presided over Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan, co-founded the World Islamic Mission in 1972, and was the founding president of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance formed against the Musharraf regime.¹²

He was born at Meerut; the Urdu article and Wikidata give his birth as 1 April 1926, the English article's lead gives 1 October 1926, and its early-life section gives 31 March 1926, paired with 17 Ramadan 1344 AH.²³¹ He took a bachelor's degree in Arabic from the University of Allahabad and completed his studies at the Darul Uloom in Meerut, specialising in Islamic jurisprudence, and he accompanied his father on his preaching tours around the world; after the partition of India the family settled in Karachi.⁴¹

Noorani was elected to Pakistan's National Assembly in 1970 on the Jamiat Ulema-e-Pakistan ticket and later sat in the Senate in the 1980s.⁴ The English article describes his writings as rooted in the Sunni-Hanafi (Maturidi) tradition, defending traditional Barelvi positions, and records that he spent his scholarly life promoting the Barelvi movement.¹ The Urdu article gives his spiritual lineage as running to Ahmed Raza Khan Qadri.² In 1972 he helped found the World Islamic Mission, based in Mecca, and in 2001 he formed the six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal alliance and was chosen as its founding president.¹

He died of a heart attack at Islamabad on 11 December 2003 and was buried at the Abdullah Shah Ghazi mausoleum in Karachi.¹²

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