Mujaddid-e-Zamān Amīr-e-Sharīʿat Mohammad Abu Bakr Siddique Pīr Ṣāḥeb Furfura | |
|---|---|
 Shrine of Abu Bakr Siddique | |
| Personal life | |
| Born | (1845-04-15)15 April 1845 |
| Died | 17 March 1939(1939-03-17) (aged 93) |
| Resting place | Furfura Sharif |
| Children | 5 sons |
| Parents |
|
| Notable work(s) | Ilm Ma'refat and Service of Shari'ah |
| Alma mater | Hooghly Madrasah |
| Relatives | Abbas Siddiqui (great-grandson) Nawsad Siddique great-grandson) |
| Religious life | |
| Religion | Islam |
| Denomination | Sunni |
| Order | Furfura Sharif |
| Jurisprudence | Hanafi |
| Muslim leader | |
| Teacher | Jamaluddin, Bilayet, Amin Ridwan |
| Successor | Abdul Hai Siddique |
| Disciple of | Fateh Ali Waisi |
Students | |
Influenced by | |
Moḥammad Abū Bakr Ṣiddīque al-Qurayshī (15 April 1845 – 17 March 1939) was aBengaliIslamic scholar and the inauguralPir ofFurfura Sharif inWest Bengal.[2] He is regarded by his followers, who are scattered across easternIndia andBangladesh,[3][4] as amujaddid (reviver) of Islam in the region, due to his significant contributions in religious propagation via the establishment ofmosques andmadrasas, publication of newspapers and education development in neglected areas.[5] He was the founding president of the sociopoliticalAnjuman-i-Wazin-i-Bangla organisation,[6] which advocated for causes such as theKhilafat Movement andPakistan Movement.[7][8] Siddique died in 1943, and his shrine is greatly venerated as one of West Bengal's most prominentSufi centres.[9][10]
Mohammad Abu Bakr Siddique was born on 15 April 1845, to aBengali Muslim family in the village of Furfura, located inHooghly district.[11] His father, Haji Abdul Muqtadir Siddiqui, was amawlana. The family was believed to have been descendants ofAbu Bakr, the firstCaliph of Islam and a member of theBanu Taym clan, part of theArab tribe ofQuraysh.[12] Their ancestor, Mansur Baghdadi, leftBaghdad in theAbbasid Caliphate in 741AH (1340 CE) and settled in a village now known as Mollapara inHooghly district, in the erstwhileSultanate of Bengal. Mansur's descendant, Haji Mustafa Madani, pledgedbay'ah along with EmperorAurangzeb to Masum Sirhindi, the third son ofAhmad Sirhindi. Some letters of correspondence between Madani and Sirhindi are preserved in theMaktubat-e-Masumia inRauza Sharif,Sirhind, and were published by Abdul Halim Arambagi in his biography of Mohammad Abu Bakr Siddique. In 1667, Emperor Aurangzeb gifted Madani tax-free land and an estate which included a mosque, and the area was named after him asMadanipur (Midnapore).[13]
Siddique's father died when he was nine months old, and so he was raised by his mother, Mohabbat-un-Nesa Begum.[13]
His childhood education started at home around 1850. After learning basic Islamic knowledge, he enrolled in a local primary school and intended to begin teaching non-islamic subjects including English. One night as a child, he dreamed that the Prophet of Islam,Muhammad, was advising him to abandon this teaching.[14] He then left this education and joined Sitapur Madrassah, an ancient educational institution (established in 1772) near Furfura. After completing his primary education here, he took first place in the then highest Jamaat-e-Ula class fromMohsinia Madrasa in Hooghly city.[15][16]
Then went to Calcutta city and enrolled in Jamaluddin Education Center in the then Sinduria Patti Masjid (now Kalutla, Kolkata). There, Hafez studied Hadith, Tafsir and Fiqh under Jamaluddin Mungeri. Hafez Jamal Uddin was the caliph ofSyed Ahmad Barelvi.[17][18][19] He then studiedHikmah andphilosophy under Nazar Shah Belayati fromFirangi Mahal.[20][15] He stayed at theNakhoda Mosque while studying with Belayati.[21]
After completing his formal education, he researched various aspects of Islam for 18 years.[22][23] During this time he established his own library, where there were many rare books.[24] The library is currently attached to theFurfura title madrasa he founded.[25] In 1892 he traveled toMecca andMedina. During his stay in Medina, he obtained the certificate of 40 Hadith books from the Muhaddith Syed Mohammad Amin Ibn Ahmad.[26][24][27][28]
He established 1100 madrassahs and 700 mosques.[7] The Madrassahs he established in his village became one of India's leading educational institutions, and evenHaji Shariatullah, the founder of theFaraizi movement in East Bengal, came to this village to learn Arabic and Persian.[3] He was a member of the managing committee ofCalcutta Alia Madrassah in 1928.
M. Obaidul (1903–1984), principal of Feni Alia Madrassah in Bangladesh, said about him,
"ইলমে জাহের ব্যতীত আল্লাহ তাকে ইলমে লাদুন্নিও (আল্লাহ প্রদত্ত বিশেষ জ্ঞান) প্রদান করেছিলেন। তিনি ফলে কুরআন, হাদিস ও ফিকহের, ও ইসলামের মারেফতি শিক্ষার গভীরে জ্ঞান অর্জন করেছিলেন। বিশেষ করে তিনি হাদিস শাস্ত্রে অভূতপূর্ব জ্ঞান অর্জন করেছিলেন, যার জ্ঞান সারা উপমহাদেশে ছড়িয়ে পরেছে।
In addition to ilme jahr, Allah also bestowed upon him ilme ladunni (special knowledge given by God). He consequently acquired profound knowledge of the Qur'an, hadith and jurisprudence, and the teachings of Islam. In particular, he acquired an unprecedented knowledge of hadith, the knowledge of which spread throughout the subcontinent.
— M. Obaidul, From a biography of Abu Bakr Siddique[29]
During his lifetime there was no teaching of Hadith in Alia Madrassah. He introduced this system, the practice of this system started in 1902 by teaching hadith in Kolkata Ghaspatti Mosque.[30] Shamsul Ulama Shah Safiullah was appointed to this mosque to teach hadith on a salary of 20 rupees.[31] He himself used to teach hadith in this mosque.[32]
He acquired special erudition on hadith scriptures, his nephew Abu Jafar Siddique obtained the certificate of 20 hadith books from him. Maulana Mansoor Hussain, one of his relatives of Furfura village, received from him the recitation and attestation of the hadith bookMusnad Abu Hanifa. Also many scholars learned hadith from him.[33]
Abu Bakr Siddique imbibed two methods of attaining nearness to Allah namelyjizba andsuluk. Much is said about his spiritual state during his student days at the Hooghly Madrassah, a four-way connection with his heart most nights. When this connection was associated with theTariqa, he would eagerly chant that Tariqa. Also many times his apada-masat would be covered by a light and his self-forgetfulness would occur.[34]
He was akhalifah ofFateh Ali Waisi.[35]
At the end of the 19th century, when the intensity of theFaraizi andTariqa-e-Muhammadiyah movements subsided, the Muslims were also somewhat weak.[34] There were many divisions among the Muslims, Abu Bakr was worried when the Muslims adopted different religions in different places.[36] He was determined to work for the unity of theUmmah, and tried to eliminateshirk,Bid'ah, superstition etc. from the two Bengals.[37] Among the scholars who helped him in this work were Shamsul Ulama Ghulam Salmani (1854–1912), Allama Lutfur Rahman Burdwani (d. 1920), Allama Ishaq Burdwani (d. 1928), Belayat Hussain Birbhumi (1887),Abdul Wahid Chatgami (d. 1910), Muhammad Mangalkoti Burdwani (d. 1907) is notable.[38][39][40] Abdul Awwal Jaunpuri andKaramat Ali Jaunpuri also helped in spreading variousahadith. Both of them were influential writers.[41][42]