Sufis, Shaykhs & Scholars 

• 'Sadr al-Ulema' Sayyad Ghulam Jilani Meruthi
• The Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia
• The Life, Personality and Writings of al-Junayd
• Sufi Saints
• The Ulama in Contemporary Islam - The Custodians of Change
• Ulema in Politics

                           This page has been updated in our Sufi Section

 A Brilliant Scholar of Islam:  
 Sadr al-Ulema, Hadrat Sayyad Ghulam Jilani Meruthi 'alayhir rahman

Paperback : 152 pgs  Compiled by Muhammad Kalim Qadri& Dr.Abdul Naim Aziz   Idara Tarweej-o-Isha'at

Without a doubt Ulemas and Mashaikhs are the favoured devotees of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala! Sadr al-Ulema, Imam an-Nahv, Hadrat Allama Sayyad Ghulam Jilani Meruthi rahmatullahi 'alayhi was a favoured devotee of Allah subhanahu wa Ta'ala. He was a shining star in the sky of wisdom, excellence, spirituality and sainthood. He dedicated his entire life, in emphasising Divine Knowledge and raised awareness for Tawheed and Risalat, while kindling the flame of prophetic love in the hearts of Muslims. Sadr al-Ulema was born on the 11th of Ramadan 1317 A.H in Aligarh. He was the son of Mawlana Sayyad Ghulam Fakr al-Din Shah, who was the son of Allama Sayyad Sakhawat Hussain Fakhri Sulaymani Radi Allahu ta'ala anhum. Sadr al-Ulema was a student of Sadr al-Afaazil Sayyad Naim al-Din Muradabadi, of Sadrus Shari'ah, Allama Amjad Ali Aazmi Allah be pleased with them, his dastar-e-fazilat was performed by Hujjatul Islam Hamid Raza Khan Allah be pleased with him who was also another one of his teachers. Sadr al-Ulema was bayt (disciple) of AlaHadrat 'Ashrafi miya' Sayyad Shah Ali Hussain Rahmatullahi 'alayhi.  

This book contains a brief biography, and 40 testimonials from the contemporaries, of Sadr al-Ulema, from throughout the Muslim World.

Recommended Reading! 
 
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 The Ulama of Farangi Mahall and Islamic Culture in South Asia    
 Hardback - 267 pages

 
The learned and holy men of Farangi Mahall were the consolidators in India of the rationalist traditions of Islamic scholarship derived from Iran. These were encapsulated in a renowned and widely-used syllabus, which they created and which became the dominant system of Indian Islamic education from the 18th century. By the 20th century these scholarly traditions, which represented a confident and flexible Islamic understanding, which many felt, had the capacity to preserve Islam even while selectively adopting social, cultural and technological changes from the West.  

Between 1780 and 1820 these traditions were arguably poised to bring forth some form of Islamic enlightenment. But over the course of the nineteenth century they were overcome by the twin forces of Islamic reformism and Western education. 

This book, written over the past twenty years, is the first full length treatment in English of this important body of Islamic scholars, teachers and leaders. Based in large part on their writings, records and private papers, it addresses a variety of issues; the establishment of specific traditions of scholarship and mysticism in eighteenth century Awadh; the place of these tradtions in Perso-Islamic culture from the seventeenth to the twentiethcenturies; the traditions and values of the Farangi Mahall family; and the attempts of Muslim intellectuals to respond to the challenges presented by British rule and Western Culture. The work of the Farangi Mahallis is also placed in the context of an Islamic world system based on shared systems of formal and spiritual knowledge.

This book is addressed to all who are seriously interested in the religious and intellectual history of India, and to students of Islam. 
 

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The Life, Personality and Writings of al-Junayd  
 Paperback - 276 pages (English/Arabic)                            Edited by Dr. Ali Hassan Abdel-Kader

 
Synopsis
Imam al-Junayd al-Baghdadi (d. 910) Allah be pleased with him was one of the most significant figures of the formative period of Islamic mystical thought and practice in the third to ninth century at the Abbasid capital, Baghdad. He was seen as playing the key role in establishing the 'sober' school of tasawwuf (Sufism) which was to become dominant later.  

In Part I Dr Abdel-Kader reviews al-Junayd's Allah be pleased with him life and the milieu in which he lived, and lists his works.  

Part II is concerned with his doctrines, including that of Oblivion (fana'), and also discusses the extent to which he was influenced by the theories of Plotinus.  

Part III consists of the edition and translation of the small body of surviving works, known collectively as the Rasa'il.

 
The Final 63 pages are in Arabic. 
 
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Sufi Saints  (Encyclopaedic Survey of Islamic Culture) - Edited by Mohammed Taher  
Hardback - 276 pages

"Our attempt in bringing out this Encyclopaedic Survey of Islamic Culture is to collect the material on Islamic Culture under various themes viz, society, economy, institutions, law, religion, revival, reform, literature, architecture, sciences, philosophy, warfare, modernism and personalities, and present a handy source for study and research.

"Unique in its focus on the Islamic world and worldview, this Encyclopaedic Survey of Islamic Culture is an invaluable source for all the concerned. This work will present Islam in its true sense--without splitting the material and the spiritual--presenting Islam as it is, as a way which unites the two poles." (jacket)

 
Contents : Preface, 1. Imam Musa Al-Kazim and Sufi Tradition (Hamid Algar), 2. Abu' l Hasan Al-Shadhili's (Ahzab Awad M.Al-Jemaey), 3. Shaikh Nizam-ud-din Auliya (R N Das), 4. Syed Muhammad Al-Husaini Gesudaraz (Motasim A Azad), 5. the Contemporaries of Mawlana Muhammad Sadiq Kashmiri (Dr. Muhammad Saleem Akhtar), 6. Life and Works of Sayyid Ali Hamadani (agha Hussain Hamadani), 7. Shaykh Diya Al-din Nakhshabi his Life and Persian Works (Sajidullah Tafhimi), 8.. Hadrat Sayyid Jalal Mir Surkh Bukhari of Uch Sharif (Mir Hasan Ali), 9. Tomb of sharaf Un-Nisa Begum Known as Sarvwala Maqbara at Lahore (Masood ul-Hasan khokhar), 10. Hadrat Nizamuddin Aulia (M. Hafiz Syed), 11. The Life and Mission of Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi (M.Abdul Haq Ansari), 12. Baba Farid Ganj-I Shankar and his Mystical Philosophy (Mohd. Noor Nabi), 13. Islamic Influence on Later Saints, 14. Islamic Impact on Sixteenth Century Saints, 15. Ibrahim Ibn Adham (Russel Jones), 16. Sarmad : His Life and Quatrains (B A Hashmi).

 
 
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The Ulama in Contemporary Islam -  Custodians of Change  
 Paperback - 312 pages                                                                  Muhammad Qasim Zaman

From the cleric-led Iranian revolution to the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, many people have been surprised by what they see as the modern reemergence of an antimodern phenomenon. This book helps account for the increasingly visible public role of traditionally educated Muslim religious scholars (the `ulama) across contemporary Muslim societies. Muhammad Qasim Zaman describes the transformations the centuries-old culture and tradition of the `ulama have undergone in the modern era--transformations that underlie the new religious and political activism of these scholars. In doing so, it provides a new foundation for the comparative study of Islam, politics, and religious change in the contemporary world.

While focusing primarily on Pakistan, Zaman takes a broad approach that considers the Taliban and the `ulama of Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, and the southern Philippines. He shows how their religious and political discourses have evolved in often unexpected but mutually reinforcing ways to redefine and enlarge the roles the `ulama play in society. Their discourses are informed by a longstanding religious tradition, of which they see themselves as the custodians. But these discourses are equally shaped by--and contribute in significant ways to--contemporary debates in the Muslim public sphere.

This book offers the first sustained comparative perspective on the `ulama and their increasingly crucial religious and political activism. It shows how issues of religious authority are debated in contemporary Islam, how Islamic law and tradition are continuously negotiated in a rapidly changing world, and how the `ulama both react to and shape larger Islamic social trends. Introducing previously unexamined facets of religious and political thought in modern Islam, it clarifies the complex processes of religious change unfolding in the contemporary Muslim world and goes a long way toward explaining their vast social and political ramifications.

Muhammad Qasim Zaman is Robert H. Niehaus '77 Professor of Near Eastern Studies and Religion at Princeton University. He is the author of Religion and Politics under the Early Abbasids and the editor, with Robert W. Hefner, of Schooling Islam: The Culture and Politics of Modern Muslim Education (Princeton).

Reviews:

''Muhammad Qasim Zaman's book de-stereotypes the ulama, expecially the view that they are inflexible in their attitudes, generally resistant to social changes, and as a consequence, become redundant.'' --Mohammad Talib, Journal of Islamic Studies

"A detailed, carefully researched monographic study. . . . Among other things, it demonstrates that the received image of Muslim clerics . . . as passive, unworldly reactionaries bound to an atemporal, socially withdrawn Islam is thoroughly misconceived. In many places, by now perhaps most, they are seen as members of vanguard groups in the renovation of traditional Islamic society and belief."--Clifford Geertz, The New York Review of Books

''Muhammad Qasim Zaman [writes] . . . with a magisterial command of both the internal discourses the ulama use among themselves and the dynamics of national and international developments. In addition, he builds his arguments with an extraordinarily rich mix of relevant examples, rarely seen and well referenced documentation, plus discerning support from other researchers, theorists, and commentators. . . . Zaman offers what amounts to a new working definition of the ulama that locates them not at the edge but at the center of discussions charting the course of Islam in the next century."--Patrick Gaffney, American Historical Review

"This book, a shining example of thorough and deliberate scholarship, forces us to re-evaluate commonly held misperceptions of the religious class and madrasa education more generally. . . . With this unique volume, Qasim Zaman has finally provided something long missing in the field of Islamic studies: a comprehensive analysis of contemporary ulama as dynamic interpreters and producers of religious knowledge--and an analysis of the absolutely highest quality at that." --Peter Mandaville, International Sociology

 
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 Ulema in Politics                                                                I.H.Qureshi

 Hardback - 432 pages   

From the Publisher :  
Ulema in Politics : This book is concerned with the role that the Ulema played in the politics of the Indian subcontinent. It covers a period of a little less than four centuries from 1556 to 1947. It has been the endeavour to portray their activities faithfully and sympathetically, because otherwise it would have been impossible to understand them properly.  

Similarly wherever praise is justified, it has not been with held, because history must pay its tribute to the greatness of human spirit the endeavour that it has inspired. The author has no sectarian affiliations that could have clouded his vision. He has not made statements that have not been substantiated by the evidence of facts or the processes of objective logic.

 
 
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A Learned Society in a Period of Transition :        
The Sunni 'Ulama of 11th Century Baghdad

 Paperback - 246 pages                            ( Suny Series)                              by Daphana Ephrat

 
Addresses the social significance of orthodox Islam during the medieval period in Baghdad. 

This book develops a new approach to the process of institutionalisation and its social significance by focusing on Baghdad during the Sunni revival. Ephrat asserts that the Sunni revival was a period during which the fluid society of the "learned," the 'ulama', emerged as a more defined and exclusive group. By unveiling the world of learning beyond its legal and organisational structures, this book explains how the Baghdadi 'ulama' constructed their social bonds and identities.

REVIEWS : "The nuanced but careful way in which this book uses biographical sources allows a great advance in our understanding of social history during the time covered." --- Roy P. Mottahedeh, Harvard University 
 
"Ephrat's arguments that madrasas were not particularly important in the formation and solidarity of legal systems, that social networks and shared values were more important for that, and that there is no evidence that madrasas trained bureaucrats or had an established curriculum are revisionist and will be controversial (in the best sense)." --- Michael G. Morony, University of California at Los Angeles

 
Table Of Contents:

Acknowledgments A Note in the Transliteration, Periodization, and Dates List of Abbreviations List of Illustrations Maps Introduction The Framework of Inquiry Institutionalization and Social Change The 'Ulama' and the Problem of Self-Presentation A Note on the Sources 1. The City The Coming of the Turks The Appearance of the Madrasa 2. Formation The Baghdadi 'Ulama' and Worldwide Scholarly Networks From Journey to Schools 3. Learning Travel and Worldwide Scholarly Connections Patterns and Frameworks of Study 4. Forms of Social Affiliation The Halqa  The Madhhab 5. Mechanisims of Inclusion and Exclusion Membership Entry to the Ranks of the'Ulama' Founding a School: Career Options Career Patterns Accession to Teaching Positions 6. Place and Role in the Public Sphere The Religious Elite and the Ruling Authorities The Madhahib as Social Solidarity Groups Pious and Charismatic Leaders Conclusion Appendices Appendix A: Scholarly Families of 11th-Century Baghdad Appendix B: Professors in the Madrasas of Baghdad (459/1066-559/1163) Appendix C: Qadis and Khatibs of Baghdad (409/1018-549/1154) Notes Bibliography Index of Proper Names General Index

 

 
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