Rahmatullah Kairanawi
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Rahmatullah Kairanawi al-Hindi (; 1818–1891) was a
Sunni Sunni Islam is the largest branch of Islam and the largest religious denomination in the world. It holds that Muhammad did not appoint any successor and that his closest companion Abu Bakr () rightfully succeeded him as the caliph of the Mu ...
Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...
scholar and
author In legal discourse, an author is the creator of an original work that has been published, whether that work exists in written, graphic, visual, or recorded form. The act of creating such a work is referred to as authorship. Therefore, a sculpt ...
who is best known for his work, '' Izhar ul-Haqq''.


Background

Kairanawi was born in
Kairana Kairana () is a city and a municipal board in Shamli district of the Indian States and territories of India, state of Uttar Pradesh. It is approximately from Shamli, Shamli city. Demographics As of 2011 Indian Census, Kairana had a total popu ...
, Muzaffarnagar in 1818. He is a descendant of the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan, his full lineage is mentioned in family sources. Abd al-Rahmānn Gazruni is a forefather of Kairanawi, was the military Chief Justice in Mahmood Ghaznavi Armies. Abd al-Rahmān Gazrūni is buried near the Panipat fort. (Qur'an se Bible Tak
Kairanvi Biography in Arabic
, Madrasa Saulatia website.
Part of the family wealth, a large property in Kairana, was granted by Akbar the Great. Many family members held high positions and/or were intellectuals. Sheikh Hakeem Abdul Kareem who was an 8th great-grandfather of Rahmatullah was the Emperor Akbar's physician. Kairanwi began receiving traditional Islamic education at the age of 6, memorizing the Qur'an at 12. He also learned
Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...
and Persian. Later he 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, but spread chiefly to the west, or beyond its Bank (geography ...
where he studied different disciplines including
mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...
and
medicine Medicine is the science and Praxis (process), practice of caring for patients, managing the Medical diagnosis, diagnosis, prognosis, Preventive medicine, prevention, therapy, treatment, Palliative care, palliation of their injury or disease, ...
. Working as a Mufti and
Sharia Sharia, Sharī'ah, Shari'a, or Shariah () is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition based on Islamic holy books, scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran, Qur'an and hadith. In Islamic terminology ''sharīʿah'' ...
teacher, he founded a religious school in Kairana.


Name and lineage

His ism (
given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a f ...
) was Rahmatullāh. His '' nasab'' (
patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (more specifically an avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. It is the male equivalent of a matronymic. Patronymics are used, b ...
) is: Rahmatullāh ibn Khalīlullāh ibn Najībullāh ibn Habībullāh ibn Abd al-Rahīm ibn Qutb al-Dīn ibn Fuzail ibn Abd al-Rahīm ibn Abd al-Karīm ibn Hasan ibn Abd al-Samad ibn Abu Ali ibn Muhammad Yūsuf ibn Abd al-Qādir ibn Jalāluddīn Muhammad ibn Mahmūd ibn Yaqūb ibn Īsā ibn Ismā'īl ibn Muhammad Taqi ibn Abī Bakr ibn Ali Naqi ibn Usmān ibn Abdullāh ibn Shihābuddīn ibn Abd al-Rahmān Gāzrūni ibn Abd al-Azīz Sarkhasi ibn Khālid ibn Walīd ibn Abd al-Azīz ibn Abd al-Rahmān ibn Abdullāh Sāni ibn Abd al-Azīz ibn Abdullāh Kabīr ibn Amar ibn Uthman.


Debate with Pfander

In 1837 the Church Mission Society appointed Karl Gottlieb Pfander, described by Eugene Stock as "perhaps the greatest of all missionaries to Mohammedans", to
Agra Agra ( ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra is the ...
in
Northern India North India is a geographical region, loosely defined as a cultural region comprising the northern part of India (or historically, the Indian subcontinent) wherein Indo-Aryans (speaking Indo-Aryan languages) form the prominent majority populati ...
, where in 1854 he engaged in a famous public debate with leading Islamic scholars. The main Muslim debater was Kairanawi, being assisted by English-speaking Muhammad Wazîr Khân and influential Islamic writer Imad ud-din Lahiz.Schirrmacher, Christine
"The influence of German Biblical criticism on Muslim apologetics in the 19th century"
''Contra Mundum'', 1997. Accessed 27 September 2007.
Kairanawi used arguments from recent European theologically critical works that Pfander was unfamiliar with, having left Europe before these were published, though his main source of reference was the apocryphal sixteenth-century
Gospel of Barnabas The Gospel of Barnabas is a Biblical apocrypha, non-canonical, Pseudepigrapha, pseudepigraphical gospel, written during the Late Middle Ages and attributed to the early Christian disciple Barnabas, who (in this work) is one of the Apostles in ...
, which he held to be authentic.


Indian Rebellion of 1857

Following armed uprisings against the British in which he personally took part, Kairanawi (his property was confiscated by the Imperial British Raj) had to leave all of his property (auctioned later), and board a ship in
Bombay Mumbai ( ; ), also known as Bombay ( ; its official name until 1995), is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra. Mumbai is the financial centre, financial capital and the list of cities i ...
. Arriving at the port of Mocha, Yemen, he walked to
Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...
. The journey took two years.


Author

Kairanawi wrote books in Arabic, Persian and Urdu.


Izhar ul-Haq (Truth Revealed)

Written originally in Arabic, the book Izhar ul-Haqq in six volumes was translated later into Urdu, and from Urdu into a summarized English version published by Ta-Ha. The book aims to respond to Christian criticism of Islam. It is the first Muslim book to use Western scholarly works in order to ascertain the errors and contradictions of the Bible. The doctrine of Trinity is purportedly contested using biblical, Christian and other sources. Christine Schirrmacher, a German scholar of Islamic Studies, states in an article on the Pfander-Kairanawi debate: "The Demonstration of the Truth' (izhâr al-haqq) served as a summary of all possible charges against Christianity and was therefore used after al-Kairânawî's death as a sort of encyclopaedia since al-Kairânawî extended the material of former polemicists like 'Ali Tabarî, Ibn Hazm or Ibn Taymiyya to a great extent."


The Madrasa Sawlatia

While residing in Mecca, Kairanawi founded a religious school there named Madrasah as-Sawlatiyah. Rahmatullah Kairanawi was appointed as a lecturer at the Masjid-e-Haram by the Sheikh-ul-Ulama (The Leading Scholar) Sheikh Ahmad Dahlan As-Shafiee. Kairanawi started teaching and realized that lessons were delivered as sermons, rather than, planned academic lectures. He gathered some of the Indian Muslim immigrants, wealthy benefactors to establish an authentic Islamic Law School to teach the Islamic sciences through a sound curriculum. He established the Madrassah in 1290 hijrah corresponding to 1874 A.D. The major contributor was a lady of Calcutta by the name of Sawlat-un-Nisa, on whose name the Madrassah is named. The Madrassah is still in existence and has well known alumni around the world, Madrasah as-Sawlatiyah.


Death

Kairanwi died in 1891 (22
Ramadan Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting (''Fasting in Islam, sawm''), communal prayer (salah), reflection, and community. It is also the month in which the Quran is believed ...
1308 AH) in
Mecca Mecca, officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, is the capital of Mecca Province in the Hejaz region of western Saudi Arabia; it is the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valley above ...
and was buried in Jannat al-Mu'alla.


See also

* List of Deobandis


References


Bibliography


مولانا رحمت اللہ کیرانوی کی علمی و دینی خدمات کا تحقیقی جائزہ
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kairanawi, Rahmatullah Hanafis Maturidis 19th-century Muslim theologians Sunni Sufis Scholars from Uttar Pradesh Indian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam 19th-century Indian non-fiction writers 1818 births 1891 deaths Indian critics of Christianity Burials at Jannat al-Mu'alla People from Shamli district Academic staff of Madrasah as-Sawlatiyah Deobandis Critics of Christianity Indian Muslims Indian Muslim scholars of Islam