South Asian Islam
12th Century CE - Present
42 articles: 33 persons, 5 movements, 2 dynastys, 1 institution, 1 organization
Islam in the Indian subcontinent from the 12th century to the present, apart from the Mughal emperors, who have an era of their own: the Delhi Sultanate and the Sufi masters of its time, the regional rulers of the 16th to 18th centuries, and the religious scholars, institutions and movements of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Abul A'la Maududi
A journalist, Qur'anic commentator and political thinker who founded the Jamaat-e-Islami at Lahore in 1941. His six-volume Urdu commentary Tafhim al-Qur'an and his writings on the Islamic state were among the most widely circulated Muslim political works of the twentieth century.
Ahmad Shah Durrani: Founder of the Durrani Empire
Ahmad Shah Durrani (c. 1722-1772) founded the Durrani Empire at Kandahar in 1747 and is generally regarded as the founder of the modern Afghan state. He invaded India repeatedly and broke Maratha power at Panipat in 1761, but established no lasting rule there.
Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi and the Barelvi Movement
Ahmed Raza Khan of Bareilly (1856-1921) was an Indian Hanafi jurist, Sufi of the Qadiri order and prolific writer whose defence of the veneration due to the Prophet and the saints gave rise to the movement known as Barelvi, whose adherents call themselves the ulama of the Ahl-i Sunnat wa Jamaat.
Alauddin Khalji: Sultan of Delhi, 1296-1316
Alauddin Khalji (r. 1296-1316) was the second ruler of the Khalji dynasty of the Delhi Sultanate. His reign brought Gujarat, Rajasthan, Malwa and much of peninsular India under Delhi, turned back six Mongol invasions, and fixed land revenue by measurement, army pay in cash, and market prices.
Allama Iqbal: The Poet-Philosopher of the East
Allama Muhammad Iqbal (1877-1938 CE) was a poet-philosopher and political leader considered the spiritual father of Pakistan. His poetry, philosophical works, and vision of Islamic revival profoundly influenced the Muslim world.
Amir Khusraw: Poet of the Delhi Sultanate, 1253–1325
Amir Khusraw (1253–1325) was a Persian-language poet of Delhi who wrote at the courts of the Balbanid, Khalji and early Tughluq sultans, and a disciple of the Chishti shaykh Nizam al-Din Awliya.
Anwar Shah Kashmiri
A Kashmiri scholar of hadith who rose to be chief teacher and shaykh al-hadith at Darul Uloom Deoband, and led it after 1915. His lectures became the Arabic commentaries Fayd al-Bari on Sahih al-Bukhari and al-Arf al-Shadhi on Jami al-Tirmidhi.
Bahauddin Zakariya: The Suhrawardi Shaikh of Multan
Baha al-Din Zakariya (d. 1262 or 1265 CE) was sent from Baghdad to Multan by his master Umar Suhrawardi and, with Jalal al-Din Tabrizi, established the Suhrawardi order in the Indian subcontinent. The record of his life is thin, and this article says what it carries.
Darul Uloom Deoband: The Seminary and the School of Thought
Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic seminary founded in northern India in 1866 or 1867 and the origin of the Deobandi school of thought. Its innovation was institutional: it carried the traditional religious sciences in the form of a modern school funded by public subscription.
Delhi Sultanate: Islamic Rule in Medieval India
The Delhi Sultanate (1206-1526 CE) was a series of five successive Islamic dynasties that ruled northern India for over three centuries, establishing Muslim political power in the subcontinent, creating a unique Indo-Islamic culture, and leaving an enduring architectural and administrative legacy.
Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq: Founder of the Tughluq Dynasty
Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq (r. 1320-1325) rose from the Mongol frontier at Dipalpur to seize Delhi after the murder of the last Khalji sultan, founding the Tughluq dynasty. He moderated Khalji fiscal severity, built Tughluqabad, and died when a pavilion collapsed at Afghanpur.
Hyder Ali: The Rise of Mysore's Greatest Ruler
Hyder Ali (1720-1782), the self-made military genius who rose from a minor officer to become the effective ruler of Mysore, transforming it into the most powerful state in southern India and mounting the first serious indigenous military challenge to British colonial expansion.
Iltutmish: The True Founder of the Delhi Sultanate
Shams al-Din Iltutmish (r. 1211–1236 CE) was the third sultan of Delhi and the ruler who consolidated the Delhi Sultanate into a stable, independent state. A former slave who rose by merit, he won Abbasid recognition, repelled Mongol threats, and built lasting institutions of Muslim rule in India.
Mahmud Hasan Deobandi
The first student of Darul Uloom Deoband, afterwards its chief teacher and rector, known by the title Shaykh al-Hind. He organised the Silken Letters scheme of 1916 against British rule, was interned at Malta for three years, and opened Jamia Millia Islamia on his return.
Mu'in al-Din Chishti: The Shaikh of Ajmer
Mu'in al-Din Hasan Sijzi (d. 1236 CE) settled at Ajmer in Rajasthan and is held by the Chishti order to be its founder in India. His shrine became the most visited Muslim sanctuary in the subcontinent, though the early record of his life is thinner than his fame suggests.
Mufti Kifayatullah Dehlawi
An Indian Hanafi jurist widely titled Mufti-e-Azam, or Grand Mufti of India. He led Madrasa Aminia in Delhi for nearly half a century, was a founder and twice president of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind, and left some four and a half thousand legal rulings collected as Kifayat al-Mufti.
Mufti Muhammad Shafi
A Hanafi jurist who served as head mufti of Darul Uloom Deoband and founded Darul Uloom Karachi in 1951. His Urdu commentary Ma'arif al-Qur'an, which began as a radio programme, became one of the most widely read Qur'anic commentaries in South Asia.
Muhammad bin Tughluq: The Scholar Sultan and His Failed Projects
Muhammad bin Tughluq (r. 1325-1351) ruled the Delhi Sultanate at its greatest extent and presided over its fragmentation. An unusually learned sultan, he attempted a second capital at Daulatabad, a token coinage, and agricultural reform, and the failures cost him his empire's cohesion.
Muhammad Idris Kandhlawi
A scholar of hadith and Qur'anic commentary who taught at Darul Uloom Deoband, Hyderabad State, Bahawalpur and Lahore. He wrote an eight-volume Urdu tafsir, an Arabic commentary on the Mishkat al-Masabih, and a four-volume Urdu life of the Prophet.
Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi
The Indian scholar who founded the Tablighi Jamaat in the Mewat region during the 1920s. Trained at Darul Uloom Deoband under Mahmud Hasan, he built a movement of lay religious preaching that later spread across the Muslim world.
Muhammad Rafi Usmani
A Pakistani Hanafi jurist who led Darul Uloom Karachi as its president from 1986 until his death in 2022. Titled Grand Mufti, he served on Pakistan's Council of Islamic Ideology and wrote on zakat, on Hanafi law, and on the hadith commentary Fath al-Mulhim.
Muhammad Taqi Usmani
A Pakistani Hanafi jurist and writer on Islamic law, trained at Darul Uloom Karachi and in economics and law at Karachi and Punjab. He served on Pakistan's higher courts, completed the hadith commentary Fath al-Mulhim, and shaped the standards of modern Islamic finance.
Muhammad Yusuf Kandhlawi
The second leader of the Tablighi Jamaat, who directed it from 1944 to 1965 and oversaw its spread beyond South Asia. A graduate of Mazahir Uloom Saharanpur, he compiled Hayat al-Sahaba, a three-volume Arabic collection on the lives of the Prophet's Companions.
Muhammad Zakariya Kandhlawi
A hadith scholar of Mazahir Uloom Saharanpur who taught for over fifty years and wrote a six-volume Arabic commentary on Malik's Muwatta. His Urdu devotional tracts, collected as the Faza'il series, became the standard reading of the Tablighi Jamaat.
Nizamuddin Auliya: The Chishti Master of Delhi
Nizam al-Din Awliya (1239-1325 CE) was the Chishti master whose hospice outside Delhi became the centre of Sufi life in the subcontinent. He outlived a dozen sultans, defended the practice of sama before the court, and admitted Hindus to his assemblies without requiring conversion.
Qutb ud-Din Aibak: The First Sultan of Delhi
Qutb ud-Din Aibak (d. 607 AH / 1210 CE) was the Turkish slave-commander who governed the Ghurid conquests in northern India for Mu'izz al-Din Muhammad of Ghor and, after his master's death, ruled from Lahore as the first sultan of the line that became the Delhi Sultanate.
Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki: The Saint of Mehrauli
Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki (c. 1173-1235) was a Chishti Sufi from Farghana who settled in Delhi under Sultan Iltutmish after training under Mu'in al-Din Chishti. His grave at Mehrauli gave the nearby Qutb Minar its name, and his successor Baba Farid carried the Chishti order into the Punjab.
Razia Sultana: The First Female Sultan of Delhi
Razia Sultana (1205-1240 CE) was the first and only female Sultan of the Delhi Sultanate, ruling from 1236 to 1240 CE. She demonstrated exceptional administrative skill and military leadership, though her reign was cut short by opposition from nobles.
Shabbir Ahmad Usmani
A scholar of hadith and Qur'anic commentary, chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband. He completed Mahmud Hasan's Qur'an glosses, began the Arabic commentary Fath al-Mulhim on Sahih Muslim, and led the Deobandi scholars who supported the creation of Pakistan.
Shah Ahmad Shafi
A Bangladeshi scholar of hadith who led the seminary at Hathazari in Chittagong for more than three decades and chaired the country's Qawmi madrasa education board. Trained at Hathazari and Darul Uloom Deoband, he wrote a commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari.
Shah Waliullah Dehlawi
Shah Waliullah Dehlawi (1703-1762 CE), pioneering Indian Islamic scholar and reformer who revitalized Islamic thought through synthesis of Islamic sciences, emphasis on ijtihad, and efforts to bridge sectarian divisions.
Shaykh al-Islam Husain Ahmad Madani: Scholar of Hadith and Advocate of Composite Nationalism
Husain Ahmad Madani (1879-1957) was an Indian scholar of hadith who taught in Medina, was interned by the British on Malta, and led Darul Uloom Deoband as Shaykh al-Hadith. His 1938 work Muttahida Qaumiyat aur Islam made him the foremost scholar opposing the demand for Pakistan.
Sher Shah Suri: The Administrator Who Interrupted the Mughals
Sher Shah Suri (c. 1486-1545) drove the Mughal emperor Humayun out of India and ruled the north from 1540 to 1545. In five years he built a revenue system based on land measurement, minted the silver rupiya behind the rupee, and restored the Grand Trunk Road.
Siraj-ud-Daulah: The Last Independent Nawab of Bengal
Siraj-ud-Daulah (c. 1729-1757) was the last independent Nawab of Bengal, whose brief reign ended in defeat at Plassey after his commander Mir Jafar defected to the British East India Company. His death in 1757 opened Bengal, the wealthiest Mughal province, to British rule.
The Ahl-i Hadis Movement
A nineteenth-century Indian Sunni movement that set aside the authority of the historic schools of law in favour of direct recourse to the Qur'an and hadith. Led by scholars at Delhi and Bhopal, it was marked by its manner of prayer and an austere standard of interpretation.
The Deobandi Movement
A school of Sunni thought and practice that grew from the seminary founded at Deoband in northern India in 1866 or 1867. Its scholars combined the roles of jurist and Sufi guide, built a madrasa funded by public subscription, and made hadith the centre of religious education.
The Jamaat-e-Islami
An organisation founded by Abul A'la Maududi at Lahore in August 1941 to form a disciplined body of Muslims who would remake society according to Islamic norms. After the partition of India it divided into separate and independent organisations in Pakistan, India and later Bangladesh.
The Kingdom of Mysore: Dynasty and State
The Kingdom of Mysore, ruled by the Hindu Wodeyar dynasty from 1399, became the most powerful state in southern India under its Muslim rulers Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan before its defeat by the British in 1799.
The Sufi Orders in South Asian Islam
Four Sufi orders shaped religious life in the Indian subcontinent: the Chishti, Naqshbandi, Qadiri and Suhrawardi. This article traces how they functioned there in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and how initiation into several orders at once weakened the identity of each.
The Tablighi Jamaat
A movement of lay religious preaching founded by Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi in the Mewat region of northern India in the 1920s. Built on short preaching tours undertaken by ordinary Muslims, it grew from one rural district into a presence across much of the Muslim world.
Tipu Sultan: The Tiger of Mysore
Tipu Sultan (1750-1799), the Tiger of Mysore, was a military innovator, administrative reformer, and one of the most formidable opponents of British colonial expansion in India, whose resistance and death at Srirangapatna made him an enduring symbol of defiance.
Zulfiqar Ali Deobandi
An Indian scholar, educator and writer associated with the founding of Darul Uloom Deoband and with its first consultative council for nearly four decades. He taught at Bareilly College, served in the colonial education department, and wrote Urdu commentaries on the Arabic literary classics.