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Ashraf Ali Thanwi

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Ashraf Ali Thanwi
Personal details
Born
Abd al-Ghani

(1863-08-19)19 August 1863[1]
Thana Bhawan, British India
Died20 July 1943(1943-07-20) (aged 79)
Thana Bhawan, British India
Parent
  • Abdul Haq (father)
Alma materDarul Uloom Deoband
Personal life
NationalityIndian
Main interest(s)Sufism, moral philosophy, Islamic revival, tafsir, fiqh, hadith, prophetic biography
Notable work(s)Majlis-e-Dawatul Haq
Religious life
DenominationSunni
JurisprudenceHanafi
CreedMaturidi[2]
MovementDeobandi
Senior posting
Disciple ofImdadullah Muhajir Makki
Disciples
Influenced

Ashraf Ali Thanwi (often referred as Hakimul Ummat[a][5] and Mujaddidul Millat;[b][6] 19 August 1863 – 20 July 1943) was an Indian Sunni Muslim scholar, jurist, thinker, reformist and a revivor of classical Sufi in the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj.[7][8] He was a central figure of Islamic spiritual, intellectual and religious life in South Asia and continues to be highly influential today.[5] He wrote over a thousand works including Bayan Ul Quran and Bahishti Zewar.[5] He was also one of the chief proponents of the Pakistan Movement.[5]

He graduated from Darul Uloom Deoband in 1883 and moved to Kanpur, then Thana Bhawan to direct the Khanqah-i-Imdadiyah, where he resided until his death.[5] His training in Quran, hadith, fiqh studies and Sufism qualified him to become a leading Sunni authority among the scholars of Deoband.[9] His teaching mixes Sunni orthodoxy, Islamic elements of belief and the patriarchal structure of the society.[9] He offered a sketch of a Muslim community that is collective, patriarchal, hierarchical and compassion-based.[9]

Views and ideology

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Main article: Political views of Ashraf Ali Thanwi

Thanwi was a strong supporter of the Muslim League.[10] He maintained a correspondence with the leadership of All India Muslim League (AIML), including Muhammad Ali Jinnah. He also sent groups of Muslim scholars to give religious advice and reminders to Jinnah.[11] His disciples Zafar Ahmad Usmani and Shabbir Ahmad Usmani were key players in religious support for the creation of Pakistan.[12] During the 1940s, many Deobandi Ulama supported the Congress but Thanwi and some other leading Deobandi scholars including Muhammad Shafi and Shabbir Ahmad Usmani were in favour of the Muslim League.[13][14] Thanwi resigned from Darul Uloom Deoband's management committee due to its pro-Congress stance.[15] His support and the support of his disciples for Pakistan Movement were greatly appreciated by AIML.[11]

Teaching and Education

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After completing his education, with the permission of his father and teachers, he went to Kanpur and began teaching at Madrasa Faiz-e-Aam. For fourteen years, he continued to spread knowledge (faiz) there. In 1315 AH, he left Kanpur and returned to his ancestral home in Thana Bhawan. There, he revived the Khanqah of Haji Imdadullah Muhajir Makki and established an educational institution named Madrasa Ashrafiya, where he devoted himself until the end of his life to teaching, spiritual purification (tazkiya-e-nufoos), and social reform.[16]

Upon his return, Haji Imdadullah Muhajir Makki sent him a letter, which stated: "It is better that you have moved to Thana Bhawan. I hope that many people will benefit from you, both outwardly and inwardly. You will restore our madrasa and mosque anew. I pray for you at all times."[16]

Influence and legacy

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He produced near about 1000 trainees, to whom he permitted for Bay'ah and those spread their influences of Thanwi. Among them are: Sulaiman Nadvi, Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Zafar Ahmad Usmani, Abdul Hai Arifi, Athar Ali Bengali, Shah Abdul Wahhab, Abdul Majid Daryabadi, Aziz al-Hasan Ghouri, Abrarul Haq Haqqi, Muhammadullah Hafezzi, Khair Muhammad Jalandhari, Masihullah Khan, Muhammad Shafi, Murtaza Hasan Chandpuri, Habibullah Qurayshi, Muhammad Tayyib Qasmi. Muhammad Iqbal once wrote to a friend of his that on the matter of Rumi's teachings, he held Thanwi as the greatest living authority. [17]

See also

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References

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Notes

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  1. ^ Spiritual physician of the Muslim Ummah.
  2. ^ Reformer of the Nation.

Citations

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  1. ^ "Maulana Muhammad Ashraf Ali Thanwi".
  2. ^ Bruckmayr, Philipp (2020). "Salafī Challenge and Māturīdī Response: Contemporary Disputes over the Legitimacy of Māturīdī kalām". Die Welt des Islams. 60 (2–3). Brill: 293–324. doi:10.1163/15700607-06023P06.
  3. ^ Ullah, Ahmad; Qadir, Ridwanul (February 2018). "কুতুবুল আলম হাকীমুন নফস, খলীফায়ে থানভী আল্লামা শাহ আবদুল ওয়াহহাব রহ. (১৮৯৪—১৯৮২) - এর সংক্ষিপ্ত জীবনচরিত". মাশায়েখে চাটগাম. Vol. 2 (1 ed.). 11/1, Islami Tower, Bangla Bazar, Dhaka-1100: Ahmad Prakashan. pp. 35–54. ISBN 978-984-92106-4-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  4. ^ Wahid, Abdul (1982). Maqalat-e-iqbal (in Urdu). Lahore: Tufail Art Printers. p. 180.
  5. ^ a b c d e Naeem, Fuad (2009), "Thānvī, Mawlānā Ashraf ʿAlī", The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-530513-5
  6. ^ Khatoon, Uzma (2015). A critical study of select Urdu Tafasir of 20th Century (PhD thesis). India: Department of Islamic Studies, Aligarh Muslim University. p. 68. hdl:10603/70434.
  7. ^ Esposito, John L. (2003), "Thanawi, Ashraf Ali", The Oxford Dictionary of Islam, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-512558-0
  8. ^ Faruque, Muhammad U. (2021). "Eternity Made Temporal: Ashraf ʿAlī Thānavī, a Twentieth-Century Indian Thinker and the Revival of Classical Sufi Thought". Journal of Sufi Studies. 9 (2): 215–246. doi:10.1163/22105956-bja10009. ISSN 2210-5948. S2CID 242261580.
  9. ^ a b c Belhaj, Abdessamad (2014), "Thānvī, Ashraf ʿAlī", The Oxford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Science and Technology in Islam, Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-981257-8
  10. ^ Koreishi, Samiullah (13 September 2013). "What's wrong with Pakistan?". Dawn.
  11. ^ a b Khan, Munshi Abdur Rahman (1992). Tehreek e Pakistan aur Ulama e Rabbani (in Urdu). Pakistan: Idara-i Islamiya.
  12. ^ Naeem, Fuad (2009), "Thānvī, Mawlānā Ashraf ʿAlī", The Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acref/9780195305135.001.0001, ISBN 978-0-19-530513-5, retrieved 7 November 2022
  13. ^ Svanberg, Ingvar; Westerlund, David (6 December 2012). Islam Outside the Arab World. Routledge. p. 224. ISBN 978-1-136-11322-2.
  14. ^ Jetly, Rajshree (27 April 2012). Pakistan in Regional and Global Politics. Taylor & Francis. pp. 156–. ISBN 978-1-136-51696-2.
  15. ^ Robinson, Francis (2000). "Islam and Muslim separatism.". In Hutchinson, John (ed.). Nationalism: Critical Concepts in Political Science. Anthony D. Smith. Taylor & Francis. pp. 929–930. ISBN 978-0-415-20112-4.
  16. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Suni Online was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  17. ^ Maqalat-e-iqbal (in Urdu). Lahore: Tufail Art Printers. 1982. p. 180.
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