Syed Ahmad Barelvi

Syed Ahmad Barelvi (1786–1831), also known as Sayyid Ahmad Shahid, was an Indian Islamic revivalist, Sunni scholar, Naqshbandi Sufi murshid and military commander from Rae Bareli in northern India; the epithet "Barelvi" derives from Raebareli, his place of origin. He founded and led the Tariqah-i-Muhammadiya, a reform and jihad movement against the Sikh Empire, and was killed at Balakot on 6 May 1831. He is considered by many Muslims to be a mujaddid (renewer) of his era, is revered as a saint and a shahid (martyr), and is claimed as a forerunner by the Ahl-i Hadith and Deobandi movements. He is not Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, the later founder of the Barelvi movement, nor Syed Ahmad Khan. ^{1 2}

His birth date carries a one-day disagreement: all the sources give 6 Safar 1201 AH, which the English and Urdu articles render as 29 November 1786 and the Arabic article and Wikidata as 28 November 1786; the record follows 29 November and marks the date debated. ^{1 3 4 2}

He was born on 29 November 1786 in Rae Bareli, into a Syed family; the Urdu article specifies the locality of Daira Shah Alamullah and gives his lineage as Syed Ahmad ibn Syed Muhammad Irfan. His primary education began in 1791; his father died when he was ten, and at eighteen he travelled to Lucknow in search of work, then stayed in Delhi in the tutelage of Shah Abdul Aziz, the scholar son of Shah Waliullah. He was lodged in the Akbarabadi Mosque and studied in the Madrasah-i Rahimiyah for a few years, returning home in late 1807 or early 1808; the Arabic article adds that he gave bay'ah to Shah Abdul Aziz and took the tariqa (the Sufi path) from him. He was raised in a family celebrated for religious knowledge and piety, and developed a deep passion for martial arts, including archery, fencing and swimming. ^{1 3 4}

At twenty-five he began his career as a Pindari horseman in the militia of Amir Khan, the Nawab of Tonk. When Amir Khan came to terms with the East India Company under the treaty of Gwalior in 1817 and agreed to disband his men, Syed Ahmad, who opposed the treaty, left the military service and returned to Delhi. There two family members of Shah Waliullah — Shah Ismail Dehlvi and Maulvi Abdul Hai — became his associates, and his popularity grew, with adherents flocking to him by the thousands. ¹

His movement's teachings were set down in two treatises compiled by Shah Ismail Dehlvi: Sirat al-Mustaqim (The Straight Path) and Taqwiyat al-Iman (Strengthening of the Faith). At their core was the upholding of tawhid (the oneness of God) and adherence to the Shari'a, and opposition to the saint veneration, shrine visitation and other customs he regarded as bid'ah (innovation) and shirk (polytheism). According to Barbara Metcalf, his followers identified three sources of threat: "false Sufism, Shi'i doctrines and practices, and popular custom". He campaigned in particular against the ta'zias — replicas of the tombs of the martyrs of Karbala carried in Muharram processions — and is reported, no doubt with exaggeration, to have torn down thousands of imambaras. Unlike the Wahhabi movement in Najd, his supporters did not oppose Sufism: they regarded themselves as traditional Sunni Sufis campaigning against deviations from orthodox Sufism, and Syed Ahmad himself was a Sufi saint and murshid who initiated many of his followers into the traditional Sufi orders — the Chishtiyya, Qadiriyya, Naqshbandiyya and Naqshbandiyya-Mujaddidiyya, in the account given by Marc Gaborieau. ¹

Between 1818 and 1821 he visited numerous towns of the north Indian plains and sent hundreds of missionaries to preach. In 1821 he left for the Hajj with a group of devotees, returning in 1823; in Calcutta he gained followers, notably Titumir, who later spearheaded the movement in Bengal. ¹

In this museum his faith is recorded in two documented segments. For the legal school: the English article's text calls him "a traditional Sunni who adhered to the Hanafi school" and quotes Waleed Ziad that he "consistently called himself a staunch Sunni and follower of the Hanafi school of law". The counter-reading is recorded in his data: Muhammad Hedayetullah's thesis holds that he rejected taqlid and declared himself a ghayr muqallid, refusing the authority of the four schools; the museum records the Hanafi value on the two scholarly attestations in the article's text and preserves the debate in the note. For the Sufi affiliation: the English article calls him a Naqshbandi Sufi murshid, the Arabic article records his bay'ah and taking of the tariqa from Shah Abdul Aziz, and the Urdu article calls him a Sufi and prints his spiritual chain through Shah Abdul Aziz and Shah Waliullah back to Ahmad Sirhindi. ^{1 3 4}

On his return from the Hajj he identified his immediate enemy as the Sikh Empire of Ranjit Singh and intended to establish an Islamic state in the Peshawar valley. Arriving in the valley in late 1826 with some 8,000 mujahideen, he made his base at Hund and Zaida, demanded that the local tribes renounce their customs and adopt the Shari'a, and replaced the traditional khans with ulama. On 21 December 1826 he defeated 4,000 Sikh troops at Akora Khattak; on 11 January 1827 allegiance was sworn on his hand and he was declared caliph and imam — a claim viewed with suspicion in the frontier region and in the clerical circles of northern India. His movement also faced a rival Naqshbandi-Mujaddidi faction in Peshawar, although his own Mujaddidi credentials were well established. In March 1827 the mujahideen suffered a serious defeat at Shaidu; after further fighting they recaptured Peshawar, where he abolished tribal rituals he regarded as innovations and enforced the Shari'a strictly, including the collection of ushr (a tenth of crop yields). During 1830 the betrayal of the Pashtun khan Sultan Mohammad Khan, bribed by Ranjit Singh, led to the massacre of some two hundred mujahideen and forced the movement to retreat to the hills. ^{1 3}

On 6 May 1831 — Friday, 23 Dhu al-Qa'da 1246 AH in the English article's dating; the Arabic and Urdu articles give 24 Dhu al-Qa'da — his ill-equipped army faced a much larger Sikh force under Sher Singh at Balakot, in the mountainous valley of Mansehra. Syed Ahmad, Shah Ismail and the movement's prominent leaders fell in the battle, a devastating blow from which the movement in the valley did not recover. ^{1 3 4}

He is widely regarded as the founder of the subcontinental Ahl-i Hadith movement, and the Deobandi school also carries his legacy; across South Asia he is revered both as a saint and as a shahid. Edward Mortimer asserted that he anticipated modern Islamists in the call for jihad and the attempt to create an Islamic state with strict enforcement of the Shari'a, and Olivier Roy considers him the first modern Islamic leader in South Asia to lead a movement that was "religious, military and political". The English article also records the criticisms: that his reform programme's militant aspects, especially its sectarian violence against other self-professed Muslims, divided clerics and theologians, and Wahiduddin Khan's argument that his jihad was illegitimate because self-declared and not waged by a Muslim ruler. These positions are reported, not endorsed, by the museum. ¹

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