Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari

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Founders and key figures
Haji Imdadullah Muhajir Makki Muhammad Qasim Nanotvi Rashid Ahmad Gangohi Husain A. Madani Mahmud al-Hasan Ashraf Ali Thanwi Anwar Shah Kashmiri Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi Shabbir Ahmad Usmani Muhammad Zakariya Kandhlawi
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Nizamuddin Raiwind Dhaka Dewsbury
Associated Organizations
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam Tablighi Jamaat

Syed Ata Ullah Shah Bukhari^[1] (23 September 1892 – 21 August 1961), was a Muslim Hanafi Deobandi 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 leader of the Ahrar movement which was associated with opposition to Muhammad Ali Jinnah and establishment of an independent Pakistan as well as persecution of the Ahmadiyya Movement.^[4]

Birth and education

Born in Patna, British India, in 1892, he received his early religious education in Gujrat, Pakistan and learned the Qur'an by heart from his father Hafiz Syed Ziauddin.^[5] 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.^[6] He shared friendship with a section of socialists and communists but did not accept their ideology completely.^[7] He was ‘imbued with a brilliant exposition of romantic socialism, and led Muslims to a restlessness activism'.^[8] He studied the Sahih Bukhari^[9] in jail when he was imprisoned for an anti-government religious speech.

Religious and political career

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.^[10] 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.^[11] After Nehru report^[12] Bukhari created All India Majlis-e-Ahrar-e-Islam^[13] 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 orater syed faiz ul hasan shah also joined them to. He was also the founding father of Majlis-e-Ahrar, Indian nationalist Muslim political movement in India. He led a movement against Ahmadis and held a Ahrar Tableegh Conference at Qadian in 21–23 October 1934. Bukhari was a central figure in the Khatme Nabuwwat Movement of 1953,^[14] which demanded that government of Pakistan declare the Ahmadis as non-Muslims.

Oratory and poetry

He became known for his oratory. He was also a poet and most of his poetry was in Persian. His poetic verses was compiled by his eldest son Syed Abuzar Bukhari in 1956 under the name of Sawati-ul-ilham.^[15]

Death

Bukhari died on 21 August 1961.^[16] He is buried in Multan, Pakistan.

Notes

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