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The Manhaj of Shaykh Ubaydullah Rehmani Mubarakpuri and the Ahl al-Hadith

Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2018 8:17 pm
by AbuKhuzaimahAnsari
The Manhaj of Shaykh Ubaydullah Rehmani Mubarakpuri

Working and being the vice president for the education religious board has nothing to do with cooperating with the people of innovation and compromising principles and all the other personal opinions being imposed on the Manhaj of Ahl al-Hadith and as usual there seems to a clear void in understanding.

Shaykh Ubaydullah being a member of and vice president of a Muslim body is also not problematic and has nothing to do with his view and cooperating with the people of innovation and compromising principles. All of these affairs are with welfare, the cooperation we are taking about is Dawah, in compromising principles and rules of Ahl al-Sunnah and neglecting Manhaj.

For example, the scholars of Saudi Arabia also have religious bodies and organisations which serve particular purposes for the Muslims of Saudi Arabia and thus the numerous other Muslim countries also have Bodies that serve the betterment of the Muslims in their respective countries. Shaykh Saleh al-Suhaymi mentioned that these bodies are set by the government and there is no harm in participating in them. They had one body where the scholars would go and speak to people in prison who had ideas of takfir and terrorism.

Similarly, the Muslims in and scholars in various countries are a part of national bodies that affect and are for the welfare of the Muslims of that country, and there is nothing wrong in this and this always been the way of the Ahl al-Hadith. The issue is cooperating with the people of bidah on their terms and on their issues. I know people have misunderstood this and people have been writing on this for a while and as soon as I write one thing on it, its as if they have to defend their position and somehow justify it with obscure and irrelevant points, when they forget they have been writing on this for months.

Other points are far fetched and poor understanding of what cooperation entails. For example, during Shaykh Ubaydyllah’s time the Ahl al-Hadith in India did not stand in the government elections and they, the Ahl al-Hadith have always stayed away from the elections. Having a Jamiyyah of the Ahl al-Hadith is the same like Ansar al-Sunnah al-Muhammadiyyah, which many scholars belonged to as well as many other such groups in Indonesia and elsewhere.

In the subcontinent they also have Ruy’ah Hilal Committees where all people of the different sects participate in order to maintain unity and this is all due to the understanding the texts of hadith of making Eid in their own respective country.

Not all of the scholars were active participants in the various groups of the Ahl al-Hadith and they are much different to the groups today, who have fractioned out into over 3-4 groups of the jamiyyah. So saying their manhaj is Shadh due to elections is misleading, because in the UK and India, they have not stood in elections. Cooperation in government bodies as appointment by the ruler and government is also not a problem and I have explained this in detail in the previous post. Eg, Wamy and other such organisations.

For example, Shaikh Rabi ibn Hadi al-Madkhali taught in the Jamiyyah Ahl al-Hadith associated Jamia Salafiyyah Banaras and Shaykh Muhammad Aman al-Jami taught in Jamia Salafiyyah Faisalabad, so they for example co-operated with the Jamiyyah? Subhanallah they even went and lectured in the MAsajid of the Sufis and Ahl al-Bidah. The point is what is acceptable and appropriate for scholars should not be drawn out and presented the norm to the average people, as these muqallids know, the scholar is not the same as the lay person.

This is the Manhaj of the Akabarin, the Akabarin from every country not just the indopak scholars or fringe views. Some of the scholars of Pakistan themselves avoided any form of partisanship or working with the Jamiyat as members, like for example Shaykh Abdul Manan Nurpuri, but he would work with them, there was no party spirit. Likewise, Shaykh Safi ur Rehman Mubarakpuri was even the Amir of the Jamiyyah in India yet he wrote a book on Hizbiyyah and party spirit, whereas some of these people are hizbis to names, organisations and their own ideas because they want to cause unity with juhal, who oppose the Salafi Manhaj on a daily basis and sit in the lap of the innovators. There are so many other scholars in many similar situations.

Inshallah, we shall show the correct manhaj of these elder scholars of the Ahl al-Hadith, when and how they worked with government bodies and organisations for the betterment of the Muslims in their respective countries and what their cooperation was. For example, when Madinah university were looking for a replacement for Shaykh Muhammad Nasir al-Din al-Albani they first went to Shaykh Ismail al-Salafi, who declined the offer and directed them to Shaykh Muhammad Ghondalwi and said to them, “I am more needed in my country and my country needs me due to my people, i.e. the Ahl al-Hadith.” One of my Shaykhs narrated this to me and he said the elder scholars of Ahl al-Hadith were concerned with the welfare of the Ahl al-Hadith, preserving their heritage. So they were preserving their creed, manhaj and fiqh. All this while Ahl al-Bidah were busy trying to wipe the Ahl al-Hadith off the face of the earth.

Another example, in 1947 when Pakistan became independent and it was an Islamic republic, Jinnah gave the role of Islamising Pakistan to Shaykh Dawud Ghaznawi, although he was involved in politics he declined and then it was given to others like Mawlana Shabbir Uthmani.

From a historical point of view just on the onset on the century, the Ahl al-Hdith were being persecuted in the indopak region, beaten and ostracised from society and the communities on account of their belief and manhaj, for what? For people wo come now and claim they were upon unity and open and blind cooperation with them, is that why the elders of our dawah were persecuted and the masajid washed if an Ahl al-Hadith prayed in a Masjid?

For example, siyasah according to the Ahl al-Hadith in their respective books was only and specific for jihad and active struggle against the colonial rule of the British, as Shaykh Qadi Aslam Fayruzpuri has his book on Ahl al-Hadith and Siyasah, Shaykh Salah al-Din Yusuf and his book on the Ahl al-Hadith and Ahnaf on the struggle for independence and last but not least the book of Shaykh Nazir Ahmad Rehmani, Ahl al-Hadith and Siyasat.

The history of the Ahl al-Hadith and the Jamiyyah is beyond 1948, it was before that and way before the dawah of Shaykh Nazir Hussain Muhadith Dehlawi. I refer the reader to Haji Shariat Allah (d.1830) and his dawah. The Anjuman Ahl al-Hadith was already set up before 1910 in Delhi and had a branch in Bengal-Assam which branched out in later by Shaykh Abdullah Kafi (d.1960) who set The Nikhil Banga O Assam Jamiyat-e-Ahl-e-Hadith in Calcutta. These Ahl al-Hadith were publishing Ahl al-Hadith newspapers around 1910. It was Shaykh Abdullah Kafi, he published a work in Bangla Maulana Kafi that was published from Calcutta before the partition of India was his critique of the Deoband Ulama for their cooperation with the Congress Party, arguing that an independent Muslim state of Pakistan will end all kinds of social and economic inequalities (See Shaykh Imam Khan Nawshahrawi’s Hindustan Mein Ahl al-Hadith Ki Ilmi Khidmat, p.216) He later focused on teaching and writing books with over 28 books to his name in Arabic and Urdu on various matters.

What about the major Ahl al-Hadith scholars with the Jamat Ghuraba Ahl al-Hadith, Shaykh Abdul Sattar and his father and the current scholars with them today, why are they overlooked, shunned and pushed to a side?

Yes, what was the active role of the elder scholars of hadith, quoting one or two lines of these scholars does not establish their view in party politics, elections and blind or mutual cooperation. Yes what was the view of the elders of Shaykh Ataullah Hanif, Shaykh Abdul Haq Multani, Shaykh Abdul Tawwab Multani and Shaykh Malik Abdul Aziz, Shaykh Abdullah Bhawalpuri, Shaykh Sharf al-Din Dehlawi, The Ulama of Northwest and Hazara, Shaikh Muhibullah, Shaykh Badi al-Din and their family, Shaykh Abul Hasan Siyalkoti Shaykh Aziz Zubaydi, Shaykh Abdullah Rowpari and his family, Shaykh Faydh al-Rehman al-Thawri, Shaykh Abul Barkat, Shaykh Muhammad Ali Janbaz, Shaykh Muhammad Hussain Shaykhupuri, Shaykh Sadiq Khalil, Shaykh Khalid Gharjakhi, Shaykh Muhammad Abduh Falah and many more.

I know what the Manhaj of my teacher Shaykh Mahmud Ahmad Mirpuri was, I studied under him, spent time with him, spent time with those who spent time with him and from the Ahl al-Hadith elders, my family members as well as his other students. For example, his political stance on Kashmir and Azad Kashmir was that it should be independent from India and Pakistan and other such views. He was very close to the elders of my family especially Advocate Abdul Khaliq Ansari, who also introduced Shaykh Fazal Karim Asims book. So, I know his manhaj personally and not from a few lines from a magazine or book.