Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari

Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari
President of Majlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam
In office
29 December 1929 – 1930
In office
1946–1948
1st Emir of Aalmi Majlis Tahaffuz Khatm-e-Nubuwwat
In office
1949–1961
Preceded byNone (office created)
Succeeded byQazi Ahsan Ahmed Shuja Abadi
Personal
Born
Syed Ata Ullah Shah

23 November 1892
Died21 August 1961(1961-08-21) (aged 68)
Resting placeMultan, Punjab, Pakistan
ChildrenSyed Abuzar Bukhari
Syed Ata-ul-Mohsin Bukhari
Syed Ata-ul-Muhaimin Bukhari
Syed Ata-ul-Momin Bukhari
Citizenship British Indian (1892–1947)
 Pakistani (1947–1961)
DenominationSunni
MovementDeobandi
Political partyMajlis-e-Ahrar-ul-Islam
Other namesShah jee
Occupation
  • Khatabat
  • orator
  • poet
  • political activist
  • historian
  • Islamic scholar

Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari (Urdu سید عطاء اللہ شاہ بخاری)[1] (23 September 1892 – 21 August 1961), was a Muslim Hanafi scholar, religious and political leader[2] from the Indian subcontinent. He was one of the Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam's founding members. His biographer, Agha Shorish Kashmiri, states that Bukhari's greatest contribution had been his germination of strong anti-British feelings among the Indian Muslims.[3] He is one of the most notable leaders of the Ahrar movement which was associated with opposition to Muhammad Ali Jinnah and opposition to the establishment of an independent Pakistan, as well as opposition to the Ahmadiyya Movement.[4] He is considered as a legendary rhetoric, which made him famous among the Muslims.[citation needed][5]

Birth and education

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Born in Patna, British India, in 1892, he received his early religious education in what is now Gujrat, Pakistan and learned the Qur'an by heart from his father Hafiz Syed Ziauddin.[6] He migrated to Amritsar in 1914 when he was 22 years old. He completed his early education by subscribing to a purist view of Islam, and remained associated with the Deoband School in Saharanpur district. Bukhari began his career as a religious preacher in a small mosque in Amritsar, and taught the Quran for the next 40 years.[7] He shared friendship with a section of socialists and communists but did not accept their ideology completely.[8] He was ‘imbued with a brilliant exposition of romantic socialism, and led Muslims to a restlessness activism'.[9] He studied the Sahih Bukhari[10] in jail when he was imprisoned for an anti-government religious speech.

Religious and political career

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He started his religious and political career in 1916. His speeches graphically portrayed the sorrows and sufferings of the poor, and would promise his audience that the end of their sufferings would come about with the end of British rule.[11] As the first step of his political career, he began to participate in the movements of the Indian National Congress in 1921 from Kolkata where he delivered a loaded speech and was arrested on 27 March 1921 because of that speech. He became an eyesore to the administration, and an official view about him said: Ata Ullah Shah is a man, who it is better to lock up in jail, away from Congress leaders than to parley with. He has spent a considerable part of his life preaching sedition. He is an amusing speaker, who can influence a crowd.[12] After Nehru report[13] Bukhari created All India Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam[14] with Mazhar Ali Azhar, Chaudhry Afzal Haq, Habib-ur-Rehman Ludhianvi, Hissam-ud-Din, Master Taj-uj-Din Ansari and Zafar Ali Khan on 29 December 1929. Later on the prominent Brelvi orator Syed Faiz-ul Hassan Shah also joined them. He was also the founding father of Majlis-e-Ahrar, Indian nationalist Muslim political movement in India. In 1943, Ahrar passed a resolution opposing the partition of India and "introduced a sectarian element into its objections by portraying Jinnah as an infidel in an attempt to discredit his reputation."[15] He led a movement against Ahmadis and held an Ahrar Tableegh Conference at Qadian in 21–23 October 1934. Bukhari was a central figure in the Khatme Nabuwwat Movement of 1953,[16] which demanded that government of Pakistan declare the Ahmadis as non-Muslims.

Oratory and poetry

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He became known for his oratory. He was also a poet and most of his poetry was in Persian. His poetic verses were compiled by his eldest son Syed Abuzar Bukhari in 1956 under the name of Sawati-ul-ilham.[17]

Death

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Bukhari died on 21 August 1961.[18] He is buried in Multan, Pakistan. on Tareen Road Children Complex.

References

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  1. ^ Sayyidah Umm-e-Kafeel Bukhari. Sayyidi wa Abi (PDF) (in Urdu). Multan: Bukhari Academy. Retrieved 28 April 2020.
  2. ^ Chaudhry Afzal Haq, Tarikh-e-Ahrar, (Lahore:Maktabah Majlis-e-Ahrar, 1940) P.47
  3. ^ Samina Awan, Political islam in colonial Punjab Majlis-e-Ahrar 1929–1949, P.153, Politics of Islamic symbolism, The MAI: Politics of Personalities, Oxford University Press
  4. ^ Bahadur, Kalim (1998). Democracy in Pakistan: crises and conflicts. Har Anand Publications. p. 176.
  5. ^ Parveen, Dr Kausar; Awan, Prof Dr Samina (30 September 2021). "ATA'ULLAH SHAH BUKHARI: 20TH CENTURY MUSLIM FIREBRAND AND ORATOR OF FREEDOM MOVEMENT IN SOUTH ASIA". Quarterly Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society. 69 (3). ISSN 0030-9796.
  6. ^ Shorish Kashmiri, Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari (Lahore: Maktaba-i-Chattan, 1969), vol. 1, p. 19.
  7. ^ Shorish Kashmiri, Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari (Lahore: Chattan, 1978)
  8. ^ Samina Awan, Political islam in colonial Punjab Majlis-e-Ahrar 1929–1949, P.154, Politics of Islamic symbolism, The MAI: Politics of Personalities, Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Wilfred Cantwell Smith, Modern Islam in India, p. 277.
  10. ^ Janbaz Mirza, hayat-e-ameer-e-shariyat, (Lahore: Maktaba-i-Tabsra, 1968), p. 14.
  11. ^ Abdul Latif Khalid Cheema, Prof. Abbas Najmi, Syed-ul-Ahrar, p.98 (Maktabah Tehreek-e-Talba-e-Islam, Chichawatni, 1977).
  12. ^ See REPORT of THE COURT OF INQUIRY constituted under PUNJAB ACT II OF 1954 to enquire into the PUNJAB DISTURBANCES OF 1953 (Lahore: National archives of Pakistan, 1954).
  13. ^ Janbaz Mirza, Karvan-i-Ahrar (Lahore: Maktaba-i-Tabsra, 1968), vol. 1, p. 80.
  14. ^ "Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari or Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam". Geourdu.com. Archived from the original on 5 November 2012. Retrieved 28 September 2013.
  15. ^ Khan, Adil Hussain (2015). From Sufism to Ahmadiyya: A Muslim Minority Movement in South Asia. Indiana University Press. p. 148. ISBN 9780253015297. Soon thereafter, in 1943, the Ahrar passed a resolution officially declaring itself against partition, which posed a problem in that it put the Ahrar in direct opposition to the Muslim League. The Ahrar introduced a sectarian element into its objections by portraying Jinnah as an infidel in an attempt to discredit his reputation.
  16. ^ REPORT of THE COURT OF INQUIRY constituted under PUNJAB ACT II OF 1954 to enquire into the PUNJAB DISTURBANCES OF 1953
  17. ^ Syedah Umm-e-Kafeel, Syedi-wa -abi, (Multan:Maktabah Ahrar, Bukhari academy, 2007), P.156
  18. ^ Janbaz Mirza, last chapter, hayat-e-ameer-e-Shariyat

Sources

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