Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi

Early life and family

Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi's father, Naqi Ali Khan, was the son of Raza Ali Khan. Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi belonged to the Barech tribe of Pushtuns. The Barech formed a tribal grouping among the Rohilla Pushtuns of North India who founded the state of Rohilkhand. Khan's ancestors migrated from Qandahar during the Mughal rule and settled in Lahore.

Ahmad Raza Khan was born on 14 June 1856 in Mohallah Jasoli, Bareilly Sharif, the North-Western Provinces. His birth name was Muhammad. Khan used the appellation "Abdul Mustafa" ("servant of the chosen one") prior to signing his name in correspondence.

Ahmed Raza Khan saw an intellectual and moral decline of Muslims in British India.

His movement was a mass movement, defending popular Sufism, which grew in response to the influence of the Deobandi movement in South Asia and the Wahhabi movement elsewhere.

Today the movement is spread across the globe with followers in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey, Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka, South Africa, United States, and UK among other countries. The movement now has over 200 million followers. Many religious schools, organizations and research institutions teach the ideas of Ahmed Raza Khan.

These ideas emphasize the primacy of Islamic law over adherence to Sufi practices and personal devotion to the Prophet Muhammad. The movement was largely a rural phenomenon when begun, but is currently popular among urban, educated Pakistanis and Indians as well as South Asian diaspora throughout the world.

Death

Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi died on Friday 28 October 1921 CE (25th Safar 1340h) at the age of 65, in his home at Bareilly.

Works

Ahmed Raza Khan wrote books in Arabic, Persian and Urdu, including the thirty-volume fatwa compilation Fatawa Razaviyya, and Kanzul Iman (Translation & Explanation of the Holy Qur'an). Several of his books have been translated into European and South Asian languages.

Kanzul Iman (translation of the Qur'an)

Kanzul Iman (Urdu and Arabic: کنزالایمان) is a 1910 Urdu paraphrase translation of the Qur'an by Khan. It is associated with the Hanafi jurisprudence within Sunni Islam, and is a widely read version of translation in the Indian Subcontinent. It has been subsequently translated into English, Hindi, Bengali, Dutch, Turkish, Sindhi, Gujarati and Pashto.

Husamul Haramain

Husamul Haramain or Husam al Harmain Ala Munhir kufr wal myvan (The Sword of the Haramayn at the throat of unbelief and falsehood) 1906, is a treatise which declared infidels the founders of the Deobandi, Ahle Hadith and Ahmadiyya movements on the basis that they did not have the proper veneration of the Prophet Muhammad and finality of Prophethood in their writings. In defense of his verdict he obtained confirmatory signatures from 268 traditional Sunni scholars in South Asia, and some from scholars in Mecca and Medina. The treatise is published in Arabic, Urdu, English, Turkish and Hindi.

Fatawa Radawiyyah

Fatawa-e-Razvia or Fatawa-e-Radaviyyah is the main fatwa (Islamic verdicts on various issues) book of his movement. It has been published in 30 volumes and in approx. 22,000 pages. It contains solution to daily problems from religion to business and from war to marriage.

Hadayake Bakhshish

He wrote devotional poetry in praise of the Prophet Muhammad and always discussed him in the present tense. His main book of poetry is Hidayake Bakhshish. His poems, which deal for the most part with the qualities of the Prophet, often have a simplicity and directness. They reportedly created a favorable climate for na'at writing. His Urdu couplets, entitled Mustafa jaane rahmat pe lakhon salaam (Millions of salutations on Mustafa, the Paragon of mercy), are read in movements mosques. They contain praise of the Prophet, his physical appearance (verses 33 to 80), his life and times, praise of his family and companions, praise of the awliya and saleheen (the saints and the pious).

Other

His other works include:

Beliefs

Ahmed Raza Khan was A Muslim scholar, belonging to Sufi traditions. He supported Tawassul, Mawlid, the Prophet's awareness of all things unseen, and other Sufi practices which were opposed by Wahabi and Deobandis.

In this context he supported the following beliefs:

We do not hold that anyone can equal the knowledge of Allah Most High, or possess it independently, nor do we assert that Allah's giving of knowledge to the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) is anything but a part. But what a patent and tremendous difference between one part [the Prophet's] and another [anyone else's]: like the difference between the sky and the earth, or rather even greater and more immense.

He reached judgements with regard to certain practices and faith in his book [[Fatawa-e-Razvia], including:

Permissibility of currency notes

In 1905, Khan, on the request of contemporaries from Hijaz, wrote a verdict on the permissibility of using paper as form of currency, entitled Kifl-ul-Faqeehil fehim Fe Ahkam-e-Kirtas Drahim.

Ahmadiyyah

Mirza Ghulam Ahmad of Qadian claimed to be the Promised Messiah and Mahdi awaited by some Muslims as well as a Ummati Nabi, a subordinate prophet to Muhammad who came to restore Islam to the Pristine form as practiced by Muhammad and early Sahaba. Khan declared Mirza Ghulam Ahmad a heretic and apostate and called him and his followers as disbelievers or kuffar.

Deobandis

When Ahmed Raza visited Mecca and Medina for pilgrimage in 1905, he prepared a draft document entitled Al Motamad Al Mustanad ("The Reliable Proofs"). In this work, Ahmad Raza branded Deobandi leaders such as Ashraf Ali Thanwi, Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, and Muhammad Qasim Nanotwi and those who followed them as kuffar. Ahmed Raza Khan collected opinions of the ulama of the Hejaz and compiled them in an Arabic language compendium with the title, Husam al Harmain ("The Sword of Two Sanctuaries"), a work containing 34 verdicts from 33 ulama (20 Meccan and 13 Medinese). This work, initiated a reciprocal series of fatwas between Barelvis and Deobandis lasting to the present.

Shia

Khan wrote various books against beliefs and faith of Shia community and declared various practices of Shia as Kufr (Infidelity). According to Imam Ahmad Raza, most Shiites of his day were apostates because they, according to him, repudiated necessities of religion.

Wahhabism

Ahmed Raza Khan declared Wahabis as Kuffar and collected many fatwas of various scholars against the Wahabbi Movement founded by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab who was predominant in the Arabian peninsula, just as he had done with the Ahmadis and Deobandis.

Political views

Unlike other Muslim leaders in the region at the time, Khan and his movement opposed the Indian independence movement due to its leadership under Mahatma Gandhi, who was not a Muslim.

Khan declared that India was Dar al-Islam and that Muslims enjoyed religious freedom there. According to him, those arguing the contrary merely wanted to take advantage of the provisions allowing Muslims living under non-Muslim rule to collect interest from commercial transactions and had no desire to fight Jihad or perform Hijra. Therefore, he opposed labeling British India to be Dar al-Harb ("land of war"), which meant that waging holy war against and migrating from India were inadmissible as they would cause disaster to the community. This view of Khan's was similar to other reformers Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Ubaidullah Ubaidi Suharwardy.

The Muslim League mobilized the Muslim masses to campaign for Pakistan, and many of Khan's followers played a significant and active role in the Pakistan Movement at educational and political fronts. This is evident in the fact that the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, had a private meetings with many jurists, including Ahmad Raza Khan, asking for their support in the Pakistan movement. Jinnah was affirmed full support in the Pakistan movement by Khan and also given political advice.

Recognition

Academic dissertations

PhD thesis on Ahmed Raza Khan written by various candidates around the world include:

Teachers

Ahmed Raza Khan's teachers included: :

Societal influence

Spiritual successors

Ahmed Raza Khan holds eight ijaza (permission licenses to add people in a Silsila) in Sufi salasil.

He had many disciples and successors, including 30 in the Indian subcontinent and 35 elsewhere.

Currently the Dargah of Ahmed Raza is headed by SubhanAllah Raza Khan while the Darul afta is headed by Akhtar Raza Khan who is also known as the current Mufti Azam or Grand Mufti of India.