Syed Nazeer Husain
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Syed Nazeer Husain Dehlawi (1805 – 13 October 1902) was a scholar of the reformist ''Ahl-i Hadith'' movement. Earning the appellation ''shaykh al-kull'' (teacher of all, or the shaykh of all knowledge) for his authority among early Ahl-i Hadith scholars, he is regarded, alongside Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832–1890), as the founder of the movementDaniel W. Brown, ''Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought'': Vol. 5 of Cambridge Middle East Studies, pg. 27.
Cambridge Cambridge ( ) is a university city and the county town in Cambridgeshire, England. It is located on the River Cam approximately north of London. As of the 2021 United Kingdom census, the population of Cambridge was 145,700. Cambridge bec ...
:
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, 1996.
and has been described as "perhaps the single most influential figure in the spread of the ''Ahl-i-Ḥadīth''".


Biography


Early life

Husain was born into an aristocratic '' ashraf'' family in the northern Indian city of
Monghyr Munger, formerly spelt as Monghyr, is a twin city and a Municipal Corporation situated in the Indian state of Bihar. It is the administrative headquarters of Munger district and Munger Division. Munger was one of the major cities in Eastern In ...
,
Bihar Bihar (; ) is a state in eastern India. It is the 2nd largest state by population in 2019, 12th largest by area of , and 14th largest by GDP in 2021. Bihar borders Uttar Pradesh to its west, Nepal to the north, the northern part of West Be ...
. He was raised a Shi'ite, but later abandoned that faith. He began his studies in Sadiqpur in Bihar where he first came into contact with the revolutionary preacher
Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi Syed Ahmad Barelvi or Sayyid Ahmad Shaheed (1786–1831) was an Indian Islamic revivalist, scholar A scholar is a person who pursues academic and intellectual activities, particularly academics who apply their intellectualism into expertis ...
(1786–1831) in the 1820s. He later moved to
Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...
in 1826 where he studied under
Shah Abdul Aziz Shah Abdul Aziz Muhaddith Dehlavi (11 October 1746 – 5 June 1824; ) was Muhaddith (scholar of Hadith) and Mujadid Sufi and reformer from India. He was of the Naqshbandi Sufi order which emerged from a tradition of violent backlash against the ...
(1746-1824), son of the revivalist theologian Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703–1762), and then Abdul Aziz's grandson and successor
Shah Ishaq Al-Dihlawi Shah Muhammad Ishaq Dehlawi (4 November 1783 – 20 July 1846), was an Indian Muslim scholar with his major focus on hadith studies. Biography Ishaq was born on 14 November 1782 in Delhi. He studied hadith from his grandfather Shah Abdul Aziz. ...
(1778–1846), the renowned '' muhaddith'' in India. When
Shah Ishaq Al-Dihlawi Shah Muhammad Ishaq Dehlawi (4 November 1783 – 20 July 1846), was an Indian Muslim scholar with his major focus on hadith studies. Biography Ishaq was born on 14 November 1782 in Delhi. He studied hadith from his grandfather Shah Abdul Aziz. ...
emigrated to the
Hijaz The Hejaz (, also ; ar, ٱلْحِجَاز, al-Ḥijāz, lit=the Barrier, ) is a region in the west of Saudi Arabia. It includes the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif, and Baljurashi. It is also known as the "Western Provinc ...
, Husain took his place as a teacher. Self-consciously identifying himself with Shah Waliullah, and viewing himself as spiritual heir to his legacy, Husain took on the title ''miyan sahib'', a title closely associated with Shah Waliullah's successors. At Delhi's prestigious
Madrasah-i Rahimiyah The Madrasah-i Rahimiyah is an Islamic seminary located in Delhi, India. It was founded by Shah Abdur Rahim, the father of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, during the reign of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb. After the death of Shah Abdur Rahim in 1718 Shah Wal ...
seminary, which had broken up into a number of interlinked schools following
Shah Ishaq Al-Dihlawi Shah Muhammad Ishaq Dehlawi (4 November 1783 – 20 July 1846), was an Indian Muslim scholar with his major focus on hadith studies. Biography Ishaq was born on 14 November 1782 in Delhi. He studied hadith from his grandfather Shah Abdul Aziz. ...
's death in 1846, Husain led the most Wahhabi-oriented school.


Attitude towards the British

Nazeer Husain advocated political quietism and was among a large number of Muslim scholars from both the Sunni and Shia sects, who supported British rule and rejected calls for armed
jihad Jihad (; ar, جهاد, jihād ) is an Arabic word which literally means "striving" or "struggling", especially with a praiseworthy aim. In an Islamic context, it can refer to almost any effort to make personal and social life conform with Go ...
against it. He was also among a number of Muslim scholars, including the '' muftis'' of
Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...
, who declared
British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
to be ''dar al-Islam'' (abode of peace) and not ''Dar al-harb'' (abode of war). During the
Indian Rebellion of 1857 The Indian Rebellion of 1857 was a major uprising in India in 1857–58 against the rule of the British East India Company, which functioned as a sovereign power on behalf of the British Crown. The rebellion began on 10 May 1857 in the fo ...
, he resisted pressure from the mutineers to call for a jihad and instead declared in favour of British rule, viewing the Muslim-British relationship as a legal contract which could not be broken unless their religious rights were breached. Despite having denied any involvement in the rebellion in its aftermath and having strongly opposed the declaration of jihad as sinful and a faithless breach of covenant, Husain was widely believed to have been among a group of Delhi ''ulema'' pressured into signing a jihad
fatwa A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist i ...
. He was arrested in 1868 by the British on suspicion of being the leader of the Wahhabi insurgents in Delhi and detained for six months but was eventually released without charge after it had emerged that he had not supported the rebels. Husain consistently denied any links with the Wahhabis as well as any role in the Delhi uprising in 1857. Because he was seen by the British as the only scholar of the Ahl-i Hadith who could allay the conflict between the movement and followers of the prevailing
Hanafi The Hanafi school ( ar, حَنَفِية, translit=Ḥanafiyah; also called Hanafite in English), Hanafism, or the Hanafi fiqh, is the oldest and one of the four traditional major Sunni schools ( maddhab) of Islamic Law (Fiqh). It is named aft ...
school of thought, which often resulted in civil disturbances that the Government sought to prevent, and because he also knew
English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...
which was very rare among Indian Muslim scholars at the time, Husain's turbulent relations with the British at Delhi had improved. He was granted a letter of recommendation by the government to the British Vice Consul in
Jeddah Jeddah ( ), also spelled Jedda, Jiddah or Jidda ( ; ar, , Jidda, ), is a city in the Hejaz region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) and the country's commercial center. Established in the 6th century BC as a fishing village, Jeddah's pro ...
when he travelled there in 1883 to perform the
Hajj The Hajj (; ar, حَجّ '; sometimes also spelled Hadj, Hadji or Haj in English) is an annual Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, the holiest city for Muslims. Hajj is a mandatory religious duty for Muslims that must be carried ...
pilgrimage. However, he was already denounced as a Wahhabi by Indian Hanafis to the Ottoman governor of Jedda who had him arrested and imprisoned before he could present the letter. He was later released with the intervention of the British Vice Consul.


Founding of ''Jamaat Ahl-i Hadith''

Within a couple of years of his release from prison in 1868, Husian, together with Siddiq Hasan Khan of
Bhopal Bhopal (; ) is the capital city of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh and the administrative headquarters of both Bhopal district and Bhopal division. It is known as the ''City of Lakes'' due to its various natural and artificial lakes. It i ...
and Muhammad Husain Batalvi (c.1840–1920), two influential fellow alumni of the Madrasah-i Rahimiyah, formally founded the politico-religious organisation known as the ''Jamaat Ahl-i Hadith'', the Party of the People of the Hadith. However, their zealous opposition against co-religionists and non-Muslims alike, to the extent of using violence against mosques and shrines, and their strong anti-polytheist, anti-innovation, anti-Shia and anti-Christian message in close resemblance to the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), did not stop other Muslim groups from denouncing them as Wahhabis. Neither did the British Government of India cease using this term for them until the Ahl-i Hadith leaders published, in 1885, a book denying any links with Wahhabism and called for the Government to cease employing this term in reference to them. Husain taught ''
hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...
'' at Delhi for half a century,Annmarie Schimmel, ''Islam in the Indian Subcontinent'', pg. 208–9. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1980. gaining international renown in this field and attracting students from different parts of India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the
Hijaz The Hejaz (, also ; ar, ٱلْحِجَاز, al-Ḥijāz, lit=the Barrier, ) is a region in the west of Saudi Arabia. It includes the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif, and Baljurashi. It is also known as the "Western Provinc ...
and
Najd Najd ( ar, نَجْدٌ, ), or the Nejd, forms the geographic center of Saudi Arabia, accounting for about a third of the country's modern population and, since the Emirate of Diriyah, acting as the base for all unification campaigns by the H ...
. Almost all of the major scholars of the early Ahl-i Hadith movement studied under him. Husain held together a network of scholars who aligned themselves to the teachings of Ahmad Sirhindi and Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, but were more uncompromising in their rejection of what they believed were blameworthy innovations in the faith and the legitimacy given to the four Sunni schools of law. The solicitude of the British also gained Husain favour among modernist Muslims associated with the Aligarh Institute, whose ''
Aligarh Institute Gazette The ''Aligarh Institute Gazette'' () was the first multilingual journal of India, introduced, edited, and published in 1866 by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan which was read widely across the country. Theodore Beck later became its editor. History In ...
'' dedicated an obituary praising him when he died in 1902 at the age of ninety-seven.


Teachings

The teachings of Nazeer Husain and Siddiq Hasan Khan were shaped amidst broader reformist developments in South Asia which saw the Muslims of India as having drifted away from 'authentic' Islamic beliefs and practices that compromised the Islamic concept of the indivisible oneness of God and bordered on idolatry. For guidance on religious matters, however, in contrast to other reformist currents in India, they advocated direct use of the central Islamic scriptures: the
Quran The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Classical Arabic, Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation in Islam, revelation from God in Islam, ...
and ''hadith'' – which they interpreted literally and narrowly – rather than looking to the classical lawmakers and the legal traditions of Islam that developed around them. Accordingly, Husain was known for his emphasis on the primacy of the Prophetic traditions as the source of Islamic law over deference ('' taqlid'') given to the Sunni legal schools and for the opposition to popular rituals and folk practices associated with the Sufis which were deemed to be illegitimate innovations in the faith. Although Husain himself has been seen as less literalist and more favourably inclined towards Sufism than later exponents of the Ahl-i Hadith, demanding an oath of allegiance ('' bay'ah'') from his disciples, a practice commonly associated with Sufism, and even praising
Ibn Arabi Ibn ʿArabī ( ar, ابن عربي, ; full name: , ; 1165–1240), nicknamed al-Qushayrī (, ) and Sulṭān al-ʿĀrifīn (, , 'Sultan of the Knowers'), was an Arab Andalusian Muslim scholar, mystic, poet, and philosopher, extremely influenti ...
, a colossus among Sufis. Nevertheless, overall, these teachings resulted in the development of close ties with Wahhabi scholars but strong controversy between the Ahl-i Hadith and the Deobandis who upheld strict adherence to the Hanafi school.


Notable students and influence

According to author
Charles Allen Charles Allen may refer to: Politicians *Charles Allen (Massachusetts politician) (1797–1869), American politician and congressman in Massachusetts *Charles Allen (Australian politician) (1833–1913), Australian politician and member of the T ...
, among Syed Nazeer Husain's students were Imdadullah Muhajir Makki,
Muhammad Qasim Nanotvi Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi (1832 – 15 April 1880) () was an Indian Sunni Hanafi Maturidi Islamic Scholar, theologian and a Sufi who was one of the main founders of the Deobandi Movement, starting from the Darul Uloom Deoband. Name and lin ...
and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, the founding figures of the
Deobandi Deobandi is a revivalist movement within Sunni Islam, adhering to the Hanafi school of law, formed in the late 19th century around the Darul Uloom Madrassa in Deoband, India, from which the name derives, by Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, R ...
movement; although prominent Deobandi scholars including Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani have issued fatwas against him. Husain is also considered by some scholars to have had an influence on
Mirza Ghulam Ahmad Mirzā Ghulām Ahmad (13 February 1835 – 26 May 1908) was an Indian religious leader and the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement in Islam. He claimed to have been divinely appointed as the promised Messiah and Mahdi—which is the metaphoric ...
, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, whose second marriage Husain had performed in 1884, though Ghulam Ahmad never studied under him. Prior to pledging his allegiance to Ghulam Ahmad and becoming his foremost disciple, Hakim Nur-ud-Din had also briefly studied under Husain. Other students of Husain included the Afghan-Indian scholar
Abdullah Ghaznavi Abdullah Ghaznavi (1811 – 15 February 1881) was an Afghan-Indian Muslim scholar and pietist. A pupil of Sayyid Nazir Husain, he was exiled from his native Ghazni, Afghanistan on account of his adherence to and propagation of Ahl-i Hadith doctr ...
; the two major Ahl-i Hadith proponents in the Punjab: Muhammad Husain Batalvi and Sana'ullah Amritsari; and the Indian ''hadith'' scholar Shams-ul-Haq Azimabadi.The modernist founder of the Aligarh Movement and Muslim University, Syed Ahmad Khan, also studied under Husain in the 1850s.


Works

Syed Nazeer Husain's Fatwas were collected posthumously by some of his students into two large volumes called ''fatawa Naziriyya''. Other written works by him include the following: *''Mi'yar al-haq'' (Criterion for Truth; Urdu) *''Waqi'at al-fatwa wa dafi'at al-balawi'' (Event of the Fatwa and Defence Against the Affliction; Urdu) *''Thabut al-haq al-haqeeq'' (Proof of the Veritable Truth; Urdu) *''Risalah fi tahli al-nisa bi al-dhahab'' (Treatise on the Adornment of Women with Gold; Urdu) *''Al-masa'il al-arba'a '' (The Four Issues; Urdu) *''Falah al-wali ba 'itiba' al-nabi'' (Felicity for the Saint in Following the Prophet; Persian) *''Risalah fi ibtal 'amal al-mawlid'' (Treatise on the Erroneousness of the Practice of ''
Mawlid Mawlid, Mawlid an-Nabi ash-Sharif or Eid Milad un Nabi ( ar, المولد النبوي, translit=mawlid an-nabawī, lit=Birth of the Prophet, sometimes simply called in colloquial Arabic , , among other vernacular pronunciations; sometimes , ) ...
''; Arabic)


See also

* Siddiq Hasan Khan * Ahl al-Hadith *
Salafi movement The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that originated during the nineteenth century. The name refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors" (), the first three generati ...
* Nasiruddin al-Albani


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Husain, Syed 1805 births 1902 deaths People from Bihar Indian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam Converts to Sunni Islam from Shia Islam Indian Salafis Indian wahhabists Atharis 19th-century Muslim scholars of Islam Hashemite people Indian people of Arab descent Ahl-i Hadith people