The Tradition of the Scholars of Deoband

GLOBAL GEOPOLITICS over the last twenty years is such that Deoband and the scholars affiliated to it have prominently appeared in the public conscious.

What and who the scholars of Deoband are, what they believe in and what their positions on issues are seem complex, confusing journalists, academics and even common Muslims.

With lots of people fudging in dark rooms trying to understand Deoband, it is as Barbara Metcalf mentions that "the need to understand Deoband and other Islamic movements in their own terms ... continues to be of greater urgency in the plural, global world of today."

This translation of Qārī Muhammad Țayyib's book on this subject, Maslak 'Ulamā-i-Deoband, is an attempt to meet this need.

THE AUTHOR
There is a popular Arabic proverb that "the owner of the house knows what is in it", and this quite rightly applies to the author of this book Qari Muhammad Țayyib (d.1983), whose unique and privileged position enabled him to elucidate the way of Deoband. He was not just the grandson of Mawlānā Muhammad Qāsim Nānautawī (d.1880), the founder of Dar al-'Ulum Deoband, but was also Deoband's chancellor (muhtamim) for more than half a century. Often referred to as Hakīm al-Islām (or the Physician of Islam), Qārī Muhammad Țayyib graduated from Deoband in 1918. He studied under the luminaries of the age and traversed the path of tasawwuf under Hakīm al-Ummah Mawlānā Ashraf 'Alī Thānawī (d.1943). He died in Deoband at the age of 85 and was buried close to his illustrious grandfather.

THE TRANSLATOR
Mawlānā Ismaeel Nakhuda graduated from Darul Uloom Bury, UK, in 2001. He thereafter completed a BA in Journalism and Linguistics and an MA in Magazine Journalism, and has worked in journalism and communications ever since. He has previously worked as a Sub-Editor at the Arab News in Saudi Arabia and as a Communications Consultant at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. Mawlānā Ismaeel currently works in PR and communications and has a keen interest in Islamic history, Sufism and the lives of the early scholars of Deoband.