Kayu Siwak Vs Berus Gigi

Baru-baru ini saya telah membaca majalah SOLUSI volume 2 yang mengritik hebat kayu siwak dan minyak zaitun yang ditulis oleh saudara kita se-Islam. Dalam penulisannya saudara tersebut menjelaskan bahwa kalau hendak mengamalkan sunnah perlu mengikuti zaman. Tergerak hati saya untuk membahas isu ini. Walau bagaimanapun, disini saya bukan untuk membuat fatwa atau hukum, tetapi lebih didasarkan kepada opini dan kajian-kajian yang telah ada. Segala kritik dan saran yang baik mengenai posting ini sangat penting bagi saya.

Sebelum itu, saya sajikan kelebihan bersiwak sebagaimana yang terdapat dalam banyak hadits.

Fadhilah Miswak (Kayu Siwak):

“Menggunakan miswak menjadikan satu asbab kemudahan dalam sakaratul maut. Selalu menggunakannya akan memudahkan roh keluar dari jasad apabila waktu yang ditetapkan itu tiba.” (Syarhus-Sudur)

‘Aisyah r.ha. berkata bahwa: “Miswak (penggunaan secara tetap) dapat menyembuhkan penyakit kecuali mati.” (Dilaporkan oleh Dailami di dalam Firdaus)

“Empat perkara yang menambahkan kecerdasan yaitu meninggalkan percakapan sia-sia, menggunakan miswak, duduk di dalam majlis orang-orang soleh, dan duduk di dalam majlis para ulama”. (Thibbi Nabawi)

Allamah Ibn Dariq rah.a berkata, “Kebaikan yang terkandung di dalam penggunaan miswak selepas bangun dari tidur ialah ketika tidur uap busuk naik dari perut ke arah mulut. Hal ini mengakibatkan bau busuk di dalam mulut dan juga berubahnya indera perasa atau kecapan. Penggunaan miswak akan menghilangkan bau busuk tersebut dan memperbaiki perubahan yang terjadi pada indera perasa tersebut.”

Ali r.a. berkata bahawa: “Miswak mempertajamkan ingatan.”

Subhanallah, Maha suci Allah… sungguh indah dan sempurna agama yang diturunkan-Nya, sungguh mulia hukum-hukum yang disyariatkan-Nya, karena tak ada satupun dari apa-apa yang diturunkan-Nya dan apa-apa yang diciptakan-Nya kecuali pasti ada manfaat dan hikmahnya. Kesempurnaan Islam ini benar-benar tiada bandingannya dibandingkan agama-agama lainnya. Diantara kesempurnaan Islam adalah syariat bagi ummatnya untuk menjaga kebersihan dan kesehatan, seperti kewajiban istinja’ setelah buang air, mandi janabat setelah junub, bahkan banyak sekali hikmah-hikmah syariat yang tersingkap dalam ajaran Islam yang telah dibuktikan oleh sains modern, seperti khasiat madu, habbatus sauda’ (jinten hitam), minyak zaitun hingga ‘si kayu ajaib’ siwak yang bermanfaat bagi kesihatan gigi dan gusi.

Setelah kedatangan Islam, Rasulullah SAW. menetapkan penggunaan siwak sebagai sunnah beliau yang sangat dianjurkan, bahkan beliau bersabda : “Seandainya tidak memberatkan ummatku, maka aku perintahkan mereka untuk bersiwak setiap akan wudhu” (Muttafaq ‘alaihi). Hal ini menunjukkan bahwa Rasulullah SAW. adalah orang pertama yang mendidik manusia dalam memelihara kesehatan gigi. …

Secara logika, kayu siwak lebih mudah dibawa kemana-mana dibandingkan sikat gigi. Hanya diletakkan dalam saku dan tidak memerlukan pasta gigi. Malah beberapa zat vitamin yang Allah SWT. beri terdapat pada kayu siwak. Kita digalakkan untuk bersikat gigi setiap kali hendak sholat, tetapi apakah kita sanggup bawa sikat gigi dan pasta gigi dalam saku kita kemana sahja kita pergi? Memang tidak pernah saya lihat seseorang berbuat semacam itu, tetapi sangat mudah jika bawa kayu siwak yang memang banyak kelebihannya.

Malah jika kita perhatikan zaman sekarang, pasta gigi kadang-kadang yang tidak jelas kehalalannya mempunyai banyak bahan kimia yang berbahaya. Memang cukup pelik bagi kita untuk meneliti sumber yang haram yang terkandung dalam pasta gigi. Tidak dinafikan juga terdapat pasta gigi yang halal seperti keluaran perusahaan tertentu atau yang bersertifikat halal dari MUI. Namun jika kita menggunakan kayu siwak dijamin halal 100% karena sumbernya murni dari tumbuhan yang diciptakan oleh Allah SWT. Berdasarkan pengalaman penulis yang selalu menggunakan kayu siwak, apabila kita hendak sholat, lidah kita akan menjadi ringan dan lembut untuk melafadzkan bacaan ayat al-Quran dan dzikir. Subhanallah. Sangat nikmat rasanya jika dibandingkan setelah menggunakan pasta gigi dan sikat gigi.

Kepada yang hendak menggunakan kayu siwak tetapi malu atau tidak tahu menggunakannya maka disarankan kita keluar jalan Allah SWT. InsyaAllah akan diberikan kekuatan untuk mengatasi perasaan malu untuk melakukan kebaikan dan amal sunnah. InsyaAllah kita semua sedia! (Tasykil…)

Tahukah anda bahwa bersiwak itu penting dalam Islam?

Ibn Umar r.a. berkata: Rasulullah SAW. bersabda, “Jadikan bersiwak itu satu amalan, karena yang demikian (bersiwak) itu menyehatkan mulut dan merupakan sesuatu yang disukai Yang Maha Pencipta” ( Hadis Riwayat Al-Bukhari ).

Daripada Abu Hurairah r.a. berkata, Rasulullah SAW. bersabda: “Kalau tidak menyusahkan umatku niscaya aku menyuruh mereka bersiwak setiap kali hendak menunaikan sholat” (Hadis Riwayat Al-Bukhari).

Proses pencemaran proton pada gigi

Gigi yang tercemar menjadikan ia mudah menarik logam berat dan bahan berasam untuk melekat kepadanya. Bahan ini akan melekat pada dinding gigi dan membentuk plak (plaque). Plak akan menebal dan menjadi keras. Plak ini tidak bisa dibersihkan secara fisik seperti mencongkel, menggosok gigi dengan sikat gigi dengan pasta gigi dan sebagainya.

Proses Gigi Mendapat Elektron

Gigi yang menerima elektron akan mempunyai getaran asal yang tidak menerima benda asing melekat kepadanya. Ia juga berusaha untuk mengawal aktivitas biotik dan terhindar dari terjangkit kuman. Oleh karena itu, gigi yang disosok dengan kayu siwak (kayu sugi /malaysia) mempunyai kemampuan untuk menanggalkan plak lebih baik daripada menyungkil atau menyikat. Walaupun anda hanya menggosok beberapa gigi saja, elektron akan tersebar ke gigi lain yang bersebelahan apabila gigi tersebut bersentuhan atau rapat.

Plak dibagian belakang gigi juga akan tertanggal walaupun tidak dicapai oleh kayu siwak. Dengan hanya menggosok dibagian depan gigi, bagian belakangnya juga turut mendapat elektron yang membantu menanggalkan plak dengan sendiri, insyaAllah.

Oleh karena itu, menggosok tidak perlu mencapai keseluruh permukaan gigi termasuk gigi belakang dan geraham belakang. Kecuali jika terdapat renggangan gigi, maka gigi yang renggang tersebut perlu digosok karena elektron tidak mengalir dengan sempurna dari gigi depan.

Berus Gigi Linen atau Plastik

Terdapat berbagai jenis sikat atau pembersih gigi di pasaran. Begitu juga dengan pasta gigi. Mereka membuat berbagai teknik dan rekayasa. Diantara teknik yang digunakan ialah seperti mesin getar, mesin yang memutar sikat, pengurut gusi dari getah, pembersih lidah dan sebagainya. Berdasarkan kajian saintifik, menyikat dengan berbagai cara menggunakan sikat linen atau plastik walaupun sikat tersebut dibuat dengan berbagai bentuk yang canggih, sebenarnya tidak akan membantu membersihkan menanggalkan plak dengan sempurna.

Sikat yang dibuat dari linen atau plastik amat mudah memerangkap bakteri. Itulah sebabnya persatuan dokter gigi menyarankan agar sikat gigi diganti setiap DUA bulan sekali! Mungkin anda lihat sikat gigi tersebut masih baru dan belum rusak atau sikatnya masih keras, tetapi ia sudah membahayakan kesehatan gigi.

Kerisauan yang berdasar..

Di pasaran dunia dan Malaysia khususnya (termasuk Indonesia) terjadi lonjakan barangan keperluan yang dibuat dari sumber yang haram dan beracun. Berdasarkan pada Panduan Halal Haram yang di keluarkan oleh Consumer Association of Penang (2006),

“Lazimnya sikat yang dibuat dari bulu babi dilabelkan sebagai ‘Pure Bristle’. Selain sikat lukisan, sikat cat, sikat penggosok sajadah dan songkok, sikat gigi dan sikat cukur dikhawatirkan mengandung bahan haram ini.”

Disaat umat Islam dilanda kebimbangan mengenai status barang halal, khususnya keperluan dalam menjaga kesehatan mulut, Nabi SAW. telah memberikan satu solusi yang terbaik sejak 600M yang lalu. Pada zaman nabi telah terdapat berbagai jenis alat pembersih mulut seperti powder, tetapi siwak tetap menjadi pilihan Baginda SAW.

Tepuk dada, tanya iman. Fikir-fikirkan dan risau-risaukan. Selamat beramal.

Sumber ...

Travelers’ Tales in the Tablighi Jamaat

BARBARA METCALF

Professor of history at the University of California, DavisT July 588

The extensive Islamic missionary movement of Tablighi Jamaat, which originated in colonial India but is now worldwide, encourages participants to go out on small group tours to invite others, primarily nominal Muslims, to return to faithful adherence to Islamic teachings, above all the canonical prayer. At the conclusion of a tour, participants should report back, orally or in writing, their experiences to the mosque-based group (local, regional, or national) from which they set out. A sample of these reports, called karguzari, are the basis of this article. The reports reflect two discourses: one of jihad, in the sense of the nonmilitant “greater jihad” focused on self-discipline; and one of Sufism, embedded in the efforts of the charismatic group rather than in institutional tasawwuf.

The colonial period in South Asia witnessed far-reaching changes in religious thought and organization as well as in the domains of life that increasingly came to be signified as “religious.” No change was more momentous than the emergence of politicized religious communities in public life. This was true for all the Indian religious traditions. Two further changes, again ones that ran across religious traditions, were also significant. One represented efforts to measure current behavior and doctrine against textual norms. The effort to line up behavior with what were imagined to be pristine divine teachings was a major theme of what might be called “an improvement ethic” characteristic of socioreligious movements of the last century of colonial rule. Second, again across traditions, there was an extension in the range of those deemed authoritative in religious matters to what might be called “lay” participants outside the traditions of learning or birth that had previously determined who could claim to speak and act for fellow adherents. Both of these changes are evident in the Muslim movement popularly known as Tablighi Jamaat, the “preaching” or “inviting” society. This movement is notable, however, in that it stands apart from explicit concerns about public life and competition to secure communal interests in the larger society. It is what could be called a movement of encapsulation.

The Tablighi Jamaat traces its origins to north India in the 1920s. At that point, even though its rhetoric focused wholly on Muslim failure and the need to draw nominal Muslims to fidelity, it was in fact one of many Muslim movements stimulated to action by aggressive Hindu attempts to “reconvert” what were seen as nominal Muslims to Hinduism. The movement took on new energy after the partition of the subcontinent in 1947, most importantly in Mewat, the location of the movement’s origins, where Hindus had engaged in ruthless “ethnic cleansing.” Tablighi Jama[at began a worldwide program, particularly from the 1960s, with the spread of immigrant populations to America and Europe and beyond. It now engages non–Indo-Pakistani populations as well.

It is conventional today to point to either of the annual international three-day congregations held in Raiwind in Pakistan or Tungi in Bangladesh and describe the turnout at each—of some 2 million—as the largest annual congregations of Muslims outside those who gather each year to perform the hajj at Mecca. Even in India, where there has been a preference for regional meetings rather than a single national meeting, a congregation held in Bhopal in December 2002 apparently drew about a million people.

Those who began this movement were themselves [ulama linked to the reformist seminary at Deoband. Typical of the Deobandi [ulama, they were also part of Sufi networks, devoted to their sheikhs from whom they received initiation and charismatic blessing, engaged in sufi disciplines and inner purification, cherishing the genealogy of holy men whose links passed back to the Prophet Muhammad himself. The Deobandis emerged in the brutal context of post–1857 Mutiny repression, which fell particularly hard on north Indian Muslims. They turned inward to disseminate what we might call cultural renewal through devotion to correct Islamic interpretation and practice coupled with devotion to the Prophet Muhammad. The key figures in this movement were widening circles of [ulama trained in newly formalized madrasas, supported by the outpouring of publications permitted by newly available printing presses—pamphlets, polemical literature,summaries of correct practices, advisory opinions given to individual questioners, biographies, and collections of anecdotes about the holy and learned. Religious leaders, long dependent on patronage of the wealthy and pious endowments, came to depend on popular support.

The Deobandis were only one of several Sunni Muslim reformist groups that had emerged at the turn of the century. One, popularly called “Barelvi,” while also giving a new popular role to the holy and learned [ulama, were more catholic in their acceptance of customary practices associated with veneration of saiyyids, holy men, saints, and the Prophet (Sanyal 1996). Another, the Ahl-i Hadith, in contrast, was like the ArabianWahhabis (who traced their origin to an iconoclastic lateeighteenth-century reform movement and who found renewed vigor in internal competition within Arabia in the 1920s). They broke with the use of the historic schools of legal interpretation (for the Deobandis and Barelvis and other north Indians, the Hanafi school) in favor of direct recourse to the Qur]an and the prophetic hadith. They opposed Sufi customs, and they discouraged pilgrimage to the Prophet’s grave in Madina. Theirs was a minority position. These orientations are salient today, describing not only jurisprudential positions but also categorizing mosques, voluntary organizations, and, in some contexts, political parties as well.

[T]he Tabligh movement stands in dramatic

contrast to…the Afghan Taliban, which sought

to use state institutions to achieve morality

rather than depend on invitation and

persuasion directed toward individuals.

As they emerged in the late nineteenth century, these competing groups debated to some extent with reformist Hindus, such as the Arya Samajis, who were increasingly concerned to “reconvert,” as they saw it, non-Hindus within India, and with Christian missionaries. But even in those contexts, the primary audience was other Muslims. In other words, a reason to debate Arya Samajis or Christians was less to influence them than to show oneself as the spokesman or defender of

“Islam” in public life to one’s fellow Muslims. This was a new understanding of Islam, as a corporate identity in competition with others, and it created a new role for both religious and political leaders.

A scion of several generations of [ulama associated with Deoband, Maulana Muhammad Ilyas (d. 1944) is taken to be the founder of Tablighi Jama[at (Sikand 2002).2 The context for his program was the period of intense Hindu-Muslim tension that followed the dashed expectations of the FirstWorldWar and the Khilafat movement when north India in particular was rent by riots and particularly intense missionary activities by the Arya Samajis. His response was not to move into new arenas that were emerging for the [ulama, like politics, but to intensify the original Deobandi program of inner-looking grassroots reform of individual lives as a solution to the same problem of defending Islam.

Maulana Ilyas argued that what had been seen as the responsibility (farzu]lkifaya) of the [ulama, namely, teaching fidelity to correct behavior, was in fact the obligation of all Muslims (farzu]l [ain), a radical example of the move to “lay” leadership. The key to his program was to get Muslims to move out of their normal, everyday enmeshments and pressures to go out in small groups to call other Muslims to this correct practice. He felt that schools were not the way to reach people. Lived experience was. The combination of the group interactions while on a mission coupled with the powerful impact on the teacher himself or herself of teaching

others was the key to his program (Metcalf 1994).

Here is a description of the current center ofTabligh work in Pakistan in a recent autobiography of a person who began his involvement in Tablighi Jama[at in the 1940s:

Almighty Allah is most merciful. A great task of revival of the ummah is going on at Raiwind, where there is a totally different atmosphere. People remain busy with Taleem [teaching], Zikr [repetition of sacred phrases], Tilawat [Qur]anic recitation] and briefing for the Tabligh missions. They are helpful and loving, leading simple austere lives, only concerned with Akhirat [the world to come] and aloof from petty selfish concerns. . . .

They arrange ijtimas [convocations], go out to different countries for a year or seven months and remain busy in the local mosques inviting people to participate in the missionary work among Muslims, who have become Muslims in name only and abandoned all religious practices. I went frequently on Fridays to Raiwind and attended the briefing and

du]a by Haji AbdulWahab. Maulana Ihsan led the Friday prayers. I would enjoy the company of Masihuz Zaman Sahib and Bhai Matloob and also visit the enclosure for foreigners from Arab countries, Europe, Africa and Far East… Jamaats would go on foot to the remotest areas of Pakistan and suffer hardships to win the pleasure of Allah subhanahu Taala. . . . A majority of our people do not understand the meaning of Kalama [the attestation of faith]; prayers do not regulate our lives; and we fail to discharge our duties. Our rich do not pay zakat [obligatory alms] and accumulate wealth in safe deposits. [Others emphasize] education,.. industrial development,… economic prosperity. These are really offshoots; the root lies in our spiritual and moral development.Without faith and submission to the will of Allah we cannot succeed. Tabligh is a world reform movement. . . . It is mass moral education for drawing people closer and reforming their habits. . . . We have been warned. . . . Our faith is not complete unless we take up the task of da[wah [mission,“inviting”] in right earnest. (Inam-ul-Haq 1999a)

Several themes are clear in this brief, insider’s overview of the movement.Acentral theme is the absolute focus on individual moral behavior in contrast to social and economic programs. Indeed, a major complaint of opponents is precisely this failure to engage with what are seen as pressing social, economic, and political needs of the day. In this regard, the Tabligh movement stands in dramatic contrast to the ideology of a second Deobandi-related movement, in this case one that called itself Deobandi (as Tablighis do not), namely, the Afghan Taliban, which sought to use state institutions to achieve morality rather than depend on invitation and persuasion directed toward individuals (Metcalf 2002b). A second theme of the Tablighis is the priority of teaching other Muslims on the grounds that however many Muslims there may be in name, almost none are properly Muslim. It is up to a faithful few, like the first lonely Muslims of Mecca, to achieve a veritable revolution in mass behavior. Finally, the call to Tabligh is one of high seriousness. Tabligh may be inward looking in the sense of not having a political program. But it insists that the individual must be effective in the world. It is not enough to study, pray, and engage in Sufi disciplines oneself. The obligation to mission is not negotiable: on fulfilling it hinges nothing less than one’s own ultimate fate at the Day of Judgment.

Tabligh [insist] that preaching must be done

face to face, that intellectuality and argument

are irrelevant to influencing lives, and that

what counts is a meeting of hearts.

All of these themes are evident in firsthand accounts of Tabligh tours, examples of which I briefly describe in the remainder of this article. The writing up or oral recounting of one’s experiences as part of a preaching tour is part of the discipline of participation in Tabligh activities and would serve, through recollection and self examination, as part of the self-fashioning and self-education the movement ideally fosters. Accounts of tours are known by a term that is not indicative of a genre but of what it is that they communicate, namely, kaarguzaari. Kaar is simply “work,” “action,” “profession,” or “matter.” A person who is kaarguzaar is someone skilled or expeditious or accomplished in his or her work. Kaarguzaari denotes the discharge of one’s duty or business, or “good service” (Platts [1884] 1977, 799). Hence, “Eek tabliighi jama at kii kaarguzaari” might be simply translated as “the service of a tablighi jamaat.”

There is no formal bureaucratic structure to this highly decentralized, voluntary movement; there are no offices and no archives; and even if there were, they presumably would not be open to outsiders. Hence the accounts, which I feel fortunate to have seen at all, are simply a chance collection. According to a full-time Tabligh worker who resides in Raiwind, accounts once read are not kept. In contrast, Yoginder Sikand, author of a well-researched history of Tablighi Jama[at, was assured that accounts are kept in the Delhi headquarters, although he was not able to see them.

Some accounts have recently been posted on theWeb. At one point, al-Madina included a link called variously “Kar Guzari” or “karguzari,” in one frame further specified as “true stories in the path of Allah” (www.al-madina.com, links: karguzari; elderspeech; DawaLinks; 1999, 2000, 2001).5 Three printed sources, to which I will now turn, include an account of a mission conducted immediately after partition (Anonymous n.d.), accounts that appear in a collection of letters sent to the center inNewDelhi in the 1960s (Muhammad Sani Hasani n.d.), and finally, an account of a four-month tour undertaken to China in the 1980s by a group from Maharashtra (Muhammad Hanif 1997).

From Delhi to East Punjab, 1950

The earliest account I have seen (Anonymous n.d.) has presumably been preserved and informally reprinted because it is such a powerful and dramatic account of Tabligh at a time of considerable danger and difficulty. It is readily available, whether as a copy available for a few pennies, lithographed on eight folded sheets with no publication information, at an outdoor book table, as I first found it, or reprinted in more conventional pamphlet format. In 1947, the account argues, many Muslims in India apostatized to save their lives. The amir in Delhi asked Tablighis at the center in New Delhi to be willing to give their lives to bring them back to the fold of Islam.Two jama[ats set out, seen off with tears and prayers. Their extraordinary account is organized in terms of a dynamic: four successive severe tests, each met with divine aid, each followed by new resolve and ultimately success.

Other Muslims were apparently often too fearful for their own safety to offer help, but gradually the jama[ats dispersed and began to find their way to the former Muslims. A group was set on by police, beaten to unconsciousness, and jailed with no provision made for food and drink. They were forced to undertake the latrine detail for the prison. After three days, help from beyond, as they understood it, arrived in an unlikely form. A Hindu officer was jolted into memories of earlier years in Multan. Thus, he was not only a Hindu but a refugee from what had become Pakistan and, hence, a person who might have been expected to be particularly hostile toward any Muslims, let alone Muslims on a proselytizing mission. The officer, however, is reported to have said to the prisoners, “When our children had any difficulty, we would take them to Muslims who were like you. We called them ‘Tablighi Jamat people’ and you seem to be some of them. . . . They were very good people and I loved them.” This was the jama[ats’ first experience of “help from beyond.” The subsequent weeks in jail brought improved conditions and, in fact, afforded an opportunity to engage in Tabligh toward some 250 Muslim prisoners.

The second test came when refugee Sikhs arrived on the scene. They, in contrast to the Hindu officer, came “with guns and rifles ready to kill.” The Tablighis besought them for permission to pray. Their cries and prayers for help were answered, although not before “the floor was red with blood.” The guns of the Sikhs had simply jammed. The Tablighis, of course, saw this again as divine aid. The Sikhs on their part were reportedly so frightened by this event that in the end they brought a doctor who nursed the Tablighis’ wounds. One Sikh, they continued, even tried to learn their teaching and helped guide them on the next stage of their journey.

Again the Tablighis set out, and again they were imprisoned, this time when they settled at a mosque being used by the government for border control. They were put into an old haveli where the well still reeked from the bodies of Muslims killed during partition. Their captors provided them with neither food nor water. A week later, the police returned, expecting to find them dead. Finding them instead alive, they ordered the Tablighis to the mountains, where yet again the Tablighis were arrested. They were beaten, robbed, and thrown into the Ganges in flood. Divine aid this time came in the form of the roots of a tree, which saved them.

Finally a huge wave came, washing them up on shore. This was truly divine aid since had they continued down the river, the local people, as they later learned, would have followed police orders to let them drown. The final miracle was that one person still had his clothes in a bag around his waist. His turban and kurta, torn into pieces, sufficed to cover everyone’s private parts. Again a non-Muslim, a Sikh police inspector, was forced to recognize the extraordinary power, zabardast

taaqat, of those on such a mission. This exemplary tale illustrates in extreme form the seriousness and importance Tablighis give to their work, coupled with the divine blessing they confidently expect for doing it. Moreover, in particularly dramatic form, it conveys the sense that the larger world is one antagonistic to the faith of true Muslims.

Letters from Europe and America to the Center, 1960s

A chapter of the biography of Maulana Muhammad Yusuf (d. 1965), the second overall amir of Tablighi Jama[at at the center at Nizamu]d-din, New Delhi, is composed of accounts of the experience of the first generations of Tablighis who spread beyond the subcontinent, primarily to places (including, in fact, Japan) where migration and work took subcontinental Muslims beginning in the 1960s. The chapter includes extracts from letters written to “Hazratji” Maulana Yusuf. Again, the difficulty of the enterprise is underlined, not now because of physical danger but because of the moral danger posed by what are caricatured as the values of America and Europe. These values are recognized as profoundly alluring. In Maulana Yusuf’s own words,

For those going to do the work of preaching religion in the materialist-worshipping countries of Europe and America, there is need of those men of God who have purpose and conviction; who, when they see the glittering and alluring life and society of those countries, will not let their mouths water, but instead, at the sight of life contrary to Islam and practices contrary to those brought by the Prophet, on whom God’s blessing and peace, will rather, weep. (Muhammad Sani Hasani n.d., 517)

Aline of poetry opens the chapter: “O believer, come! Let us show you/A visit of the Divine, within the house of idols” (ibid., 516).

The letters again confirm the priority to be given to lapsed Muslims, not to the non-Muslim population. Yet the letters also express high hopes for what a mere handful, if truly faithful like the Prophet’s embattled followers in Mecca, can accomplish. Indeed, as a 1961 letter writes, the improvement once Tabligh is launched is virtually “without effort” (Muhammad Sani Hasani n.d., 524). Others look ahead to a larger dream:

May Allah make us the means and cause of turning this capital of infidelity and ingratitude [London] into a center of peace and faith. (Ibid., 521)

Presumably, a time would come when Muslims would not only seek out fellow Muslims.

For the most part, however, at this point the letters reflect more the dangers posed by non-Muslims than the opportunity for converting them. This marks a change from the early days of the movement, which had emphasized internal Muslim failures. Either Muslims were neglectful of their religious life completely or they followed deviations in the form of false customs described not as Hindu or Western but as the influence of Sufism or of Shi[ism. At this point, however,

Tablighis in America and Europe devoted considerable energy to setting true Islam against a world of “materialism, self-absorption, and lack of modesty, kindness, and courtesy” (Muhammad Sani Hasani 1967, 516). A Pakistani in New York wrote back to the Center that “people stay out half the night. They work all day, then amuse themselves, men and women, wasting what they earn and oblivious of

the End” (ibid., 534). A Tablighi in Detroit wrote that adolescents (sayana qaum ) there were “worse than animals” (ibid., 543).

From Maligaon to China, 1986

In the mid-1980s a jama[at set out from Maligaon, a town in the state of Maharashtra of late known as one of severe communal tensions, for China. The detailed, book-length account of this four-month jama[at to China is compelling because of the close view it provides of the daily activities on tour. A particularly important dimension of this tour is that it describes interactions between peoples who shared no common language (aside from a precious scattering of contacts who knew some Arabic). The account thus provides a striking example of Tabligh insistence that preaching must be done face to face, that intellectuality and argument are irrelevant to influencing lives, and that what counts is a meeting of hearts.

The account also serves to nuance the meaning of Tabligh apoliticism. As the accounts already cited have made clear, Tabligh draws two boundaries, one between Muslims and an alien cultural world of non-Muslims and a second between the faithful and the vast majority of Muslims who, however pious they may think themselves, are Muslims only in name. Certainly the latter demarcation is important in this account. The Maharashtrians encountered what were to them shocking local practices, for example, several that reflect on ritual cleanliness. They found the Chinese Muslims using toilets with no modesty or concern for the direction of the qibla direction of Mecca; they also used toilet paper; they ate with the left hand or even with chopsticks; they were wholly oblivious of the Prophetic practice of using the miswak twig for teeth cleaning. The Tablighis found what seemed to them to be women dressed like men. Men and women, moreover, mixed freely in public life. Muslims allowed photography. They wasted their time in “boxing.” These failures, as they were seen, were interestingly attributed to the Chinese Muslims’ being “in the grip of the West” (Muhammad Hanif 1997, 38).

But however much they had gone astray, the Chinese Muslims were also seen as victims in a way that could only intensify opposition to the Chinese state, a critique perhaps easier for Muslim Indians than for Pakistanis, for example, given the alliances of their respective states. Muhammad Hanif (1997) attributed the failure of local imams to cooperate with the Tablighis to their fear of Chinese government

reprisals. He recounted stories of outright persecution on the part of the state and dedicated his book “to the oppressed Chinese Muslims.”

In Conclusion

The stories Tablighis tell about themselves can only be understood in the light of the stories they tell about the Prophet Muhammad, the Companions of the Prophet, and those who have followed them. The stories assert that the high standard set in the hadith is gone and that it is again the time of jahiliyya, a time of ignorance classically understood as the pre-Muhammad age in Arabia. In this, Tabligh thinking espouses the same interpretation of the current day as do many twentiethcentury Islamist thinkers, notably the Egyptian Sayyid Qutb (1906-66), who place jahiliyya not in the distant past but in the present.7 There is, thus, a particular urgency to Muslims seeking to follow prophetic example today.

The locus classicus for interpreting the early years of Tabligh work in India in a context of jahiliyya was written by Maulana Abu]l-ala Maududi (1903-79). Maududi would later become a critic of Tablighi Jama[at because, like Qutb, he favored political Islam. Indeed, he would emerge as one of the premier Islamist thinkers of the century. Nonetheless, in 1939 he was filled with admiration when he saw Tablighi activities firsthand in Mewat, the area southwest of Delhi where the movement first flourished. His story, published in a leading Urdu journal, told of the unlettered but sturdy Mewatis as the mirror of the Arab Bedouins of the pre-Islamic jahiliyya whose lives were transformed through Islam. Maududi’s description of the Mewatis, with their Hindu names, their ignorance of prayer (so that they would gape at someone praying and worry that he had a stomachache), their idols and tufts of hair, has been absorbed into Tabligh legend. “It seemed as if that very spirit, with which at the beginning of Islam the Arab Bedouin rose up for the tabligh of the straight path, now had been born in these people.” If this were the time of jahiliyya, there had to be Bedouins (Abu]l-ala Maududi [1939] 1979, 25).

If Tablighi ideology, despite its fundamentally different program, shares certain assumptions and symbols with political Islam, it also draws on a second language, evident in the accounts as in much Tabligh language. This is a Sufi idiom. Tablighis believe themselves able to receive, through divine blessings granted on account of

their work, the high spiritual state and charisma accorded to Sufis. The Sufis gain their blessings through lives devoted to disciplines, meditation, and moral purification coupled with the powerful charisma of succession transmitted through the elder to whom they pledge allegiance. These states can now to be gained by participation

in the charismatic community of the jama[at. Thus, the participant gains through his experiential states in this life the assurance that what he is doing is receiving divine blessing.

[S]ome Tablighis, in fact, will emphasize

Muslim failure to live morally as a cause

of recent Muslim suffering today.

Muhammad Hanif (1997), for example, used such terms as lutf (joy, grace), kaif (exhilaration), and sukun-i qalb (peace of heart) to describe the spiritual experience of his jama[at. The 1950 account spoke of being granted the light of insight (nur-i basiirat) and of the gnosis (ma’arifat) and revelations (inkishaaf) accorded those who participated. Story after story, like those described above, illustrate how a jama[at becomes a vehicle for what are essentially the karamat, or miracles, gained in classic Sufi accounts by a particular holy man who enjoys God’s favor.

The second, and more formative, discourse is the one alluded to above in relation to jahiliyya, the essentially military vocabulary that this “greater jihad” shares with the “lesser jihad” of warfare against the kuffaar. Both, for starts, are jihad, quoting a tradition invoked by one of the leading Deobandi intellectuals, Hazrat Maulana Mufti Muhammad Shafii[ that “the meaning of jihad is those who remove obstacles to religion; one is with the kuffaar and one with the self and Satan” (Anonymous n.d., 5). The shared idiom of jihad gives shape to the jama[at, which, like a political undertaking, is led by an amir (including an amir of each group going out) and guided by consultation (shura). Tablighi preaching tours are described as gasht/jaula, patrols, and khuruj, sorties. Anyone who is “lucky” enough, as described in a 1960s letter (Muhammad Sani Hasani n.d., 538), to die in the course of a Tabligh tour is a shahiid as much as someone is who dies in a militant jihad. Tablighis’ efforts, like those of an armed mujahid, are understood to be fisabili]llah, in the path of God. There is also the assertion that as in the lesser jihad, the participant will receive exponentially increased reward for all acts performed in the course of Tabligh so that the canonical prayer during a tour merits the equivalent of twenty lakh prayers of one at home; one rupee spent in the work of jihad is worth a karoor of rupees, and so forth (Anonymous n.d., 2-3). In both forms of jihad, the believer is enjoined to effective action in a world that needs to be changed. The 1950 account opens with a couplet that begins “from actions [which includes calling others to those actions] life is made” (Anonymous n.d., 1).

Among the karguzari on the Web site noted above are travels for preaching tours all over the earth—to Turkey, Palestine, Denmark, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, Central Asia, Brazil. But also listed as karguzari, discharging a duty, is a karguzari of the armed fighting in Chechnya dated April 2000. The posting describes it as “jihad for the sake of Allah”; it is “an obligatory worship of Allah

that we are performing.” “The Russian bear,” as it is called, is an immoral regime. The account calls attention to attacks on civilian targets carried out by Putin “trying to tarnish the image of the Mujahideen in Chechnya.”“We have no quarrel with the innocent Russian people,” the account continues, “our argument is with the Russian government and army, not the women, children and elderly citizens of Russia.”

Some observers assume that participation in the peaceful jihad of Tablighi Jama[at is a first stage toward militant jihad or at least toward more active political forms of organization. That assumption, like the more extreme assumption that the Tablighi Jihad serves as a cover for terrorists,9 remains to be demonstrated. It is, however, clear that for millions of participants, the injunction to disseminating individual moral reform is the movement’s only mission. If pressed to talk about political issues, some Tablighis, in fact, will emphasize Muslim failure to live morally as a cause of recent Muslim suffering today, particularly in the swathe of land that swings from Chechnya through Kashmir, to Afghanistan, Iraq, Bosnia, and—most important—Palestine, in contrast to those more public figures who explicitly condemn Christian, Zionist, and other oppression. One of the foundational texts of the movement, from 1945, uses in its English translation “Muslim Degeneracy” to target its primary concern.

Yet for all this crucial difference, as the accounts show, Tablighis share fundamental attitudes with the militants, not least their belief that Islam must be defended. They also are shaped by a commitment to individual action as effective in shaping the larger world, and they share the conviction that that the faithful few, who act “in the way of Allah,” can achieve far-reaching transformations. They also cultivate a cultural encapsulation that divides them starkly from a larger, evil, and threatening world.

Source ...

Maulana Muhammad Ilyas; First Ameer of Tableeghi Jamaat (RA)

On the outskirts of Delhi, near the tomb of Khwaja Nizamuddin, there lived, some seventy years ago, a godly person in the house on top of the red gate of the historical building called Chaunsath Khamba. His name was Maulana Mohammad Ismail. Maulana Mohammad Ismail

The. ancestral home of Maulana Mohammad Ismail was in Jhanjhana in the district of Muzaffarnagar. But when, after the death of his (Ismail) first wife, he married again in the family of Mufti Ilahi Bakhsh Kandhlawi, who belonged to the same ancestry as him, he visited Kandhla frequently and it became a second home to him.

The family of Siddiqui Sheikhs of Jhanjhana and Kandhla had been known, for generations, for piety and learning, and was held in high esteem in the neighborhood. The lines of descent of Maulana Mohammad Ismail and Mufti Ilahi Bakhsh Become one, six generations upwards. with Molvi Mohammad Sharif. The lineage runs as follows: Maulana Mohammad Ismail, son of Ghulam Husain, son, of Hakim Karim Bakhsh, son of Hakim Ghulam Mohiuddin, son of Molvi Mohammad Sajid, son of Mofti Mohammed Faiz, son of Molvi Mohammad Sharif, son of Molvi Mohammad Ashraf, son of Sheikh Jamal Mohammad Shah, son of Sheikh Baban Shah, son of Sheikh Bahauddin Shah, son of Molvi Mohammad Sheikh, son of Sheikh Mohammad Fazil, son of Es Sheikh Qutub Shah.

Mufti Ilahi Bakhsh

Mufti Ilahi Bakhsh was among the most outstanding pupils of Shah Abdul Aziz. Besides being a distinguished teacher, author and legist, he was, also a Unani physician of a high order, and possessed a thorough knowledge of both the rational and traditional sciences. He had a great command over Arabic, Persian and Urdu poetry as well, as is borne out by his commentary of Banat Su’ad in which he has translated every line of Hazrat K’ab into Arabic, Persian and Urdu verse. He left behind about 40 books in Arabic and Persian of which Shiyamul Habib and Mathnaawi Maulana Rum Ka Takmial are more famous.

Mufti Ilahi Bakhsh had taken ba’it at the hand of Shah Abdul Aziz. A glowing proof of his sincerity and selflessness was that though he was a renowned spiritual mentor himself, on the death of Shah Abdul Aziz, he felt no hesitation in taking ba’it at the hand of the latter’s young deputy, Syed Ahmad Shaheed, who was about 28 years his junior in age, and in seeking guidance from him. Mufti Sahib was born in 1748, and died in 1831, at the age of 83 years. All his sons and grandsons were men of learning and position. Scholarship and religiousness have been the characteristics of this family Molvi Abul Hasan’s Mathnawi, Gulzar-i-Ibrahim, which forms a part of his well-known work, Bahr-i- Haqiqat, is a poem of rare spiritual feeling. Till recently, it was very popular. His son,
Molvi Nurul Hasan, and all the four grandsons, Molvi Ziaul Hasan, Molvi Akbar, Molvi Sulaiman and Hakim Molvi Ibrahim, attained to fame as worthy representatives of their celebrated ancestors.

Maulana Muzaffar Husain

Mufti Saheb’s nephew, Maulana Muzaffar Husain, who was a most favorite pupil of Shah Is’haq and a deputy of Shah Mohammad Yaqub, and had, also, been favored with the company of Syed Ahmad Shaheed, was a very pious and godly person. He never touched anything that was of doubtful purity in the eyes of the Shariat. Incidents of his humility and prayer and fullness are still fresh in the memory of the people of the neighboring areas and serve as a reminder to the glorious days of the earliest decades of Islam.

The maternal grand-daughter of Maulana Muzaffar Husain was married to Maulana Mohammad Ismail. It was his second marriage which was solemnized on October 3 1868. Maulana Mohammad Ismail was the tutor of the children of Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh, who was related to Bahadur Shah Zafar the last of the Mughal Emperors. He lived, as we have seen. in the house on top of the red gate of Chaunsath Khamba. Close to it, was a small mosque with a tin shed in front which used to serve as the parlor of Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh, and, owing to it, it was called Bangle Wali Masjid.

The Maulana was spending his days in obscurity and even Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh had no idea of his high station till he had a personal experience of how the Maualna prayers were granted by God. Worship, Zikr (repeating the Names, praise and Attributes of the Lord), attending to the needs of the travelers and teaching the Quran giving instruction in the Faith were his sole occupation in life. He used to take down the load from the heads of the thirsty laborers who passed the way place it on the ground, draw water from the well and give it to them to drink, and, then, offer two Rak’ats of Salaat, expressing gratitude to the Lord that He had given him the opportunity to serve His bondsmen, though he did not deserve it. He had attained the state of Ihsan.

Once, as he requested Maulana Rasheed Ahmad Gangohi to teach him Sulook, the latter remarked, “You don’t need it. You have already attained the objective that is to be reached through this method. It is like a person who has read the Quran saying that he should, also, read the elementary text book of Arabic because he had not begun with it”.

The Maulana was very fond of the recitation of the Quran An old wish of his was that he went on grazing the goats and reciting the Quran. He was very particular about some member of his family keeping vigil in the night. His second son, Maulana Yahya, used to study till midnight, and, then the Maulana himself got up and Maulana Yahya went to bed, and for the last part of the night, he woke up his eldest son, Maulana Mohammad.

The Maulana never bore a grudge against anyone. His detachment with the world was so complete that it had made him attached to everybody. All the persons who came into contact with him were impressed by his piety, sincerity and selflessness. Leaders of the different warring groups of Delhi held him in the highest esteem, and put an equal trust in him, though they disliked each other so much that none of them was willing to offer Salaat behind the other.

The link with Mewat, too, was established in his lifetime. It is related that, once, he went out in the hope of finding a Muslim whom he could bring to the mosque and offer Salaat with him On meeting some Muslim laborers, he inquired from them where they were going.? “We are going in search of work”, they replied. “How much do you expect to earn?’ asked the Maulana. The laborers, thereupon, told him about the daily wages they, generally, received. “If you get the same here,” the Maulana asked, “What is the use of going elsewhere ” The laborers agreed and the Maulana took them to the mosque and began to teach the Salaat and the Quran. He would pay them their wages every day and keep them engaged in their lessons. In a few days, they developed the habit of offering up Salaat. Such was the beginning of the Madrassa of Bangle Wali Masjid, and these laborers were its first scholars. After it, about ten Mewati students always remained in the Madrassa and their meals used to come from the house of Mirza Ilahi Bakhsh.

Death of Maulana Mohammad Ismail

Maulana Mohammad Ismail died on :26th February, 1898 in Khajoor Wali Masjid at the Tiraha of Bahram in Delhi. The number of mourners, at his funeral, was so large that though long bamboo poles had been tied to the either side of the bier to enable them to lend a shoulder to it, many people did not get a chance during the entire route of three- and-a-half miles from Delhi to Nizamuddin.

Muslims belonging to various sects and schools of thought, who never got together, joined the procession. The Maulana’s second son, Maulana Mohammad Yahya, narrates that my elder brother, Maulana Mohammad, was a very soft-hearted person and had a most obliging nature. Fearing that he might invite someone to lead the funeral service behind whom people of another sect or group refused to offer the prayer, and, thus an unpleasant situation arose, I stepped forward and said that I would lead the service. Everyone then, offered the prayers peacefully and there was no dissent or commotion.

Owing to the vast concourse of men, the funeral service had to be held a number of times and the burial was delayed. During it, a venerable person and another man known for his spirituality had a vision that Maulana Mohammad Ismail was saying, “Send me off soon. I am feeling ashamed The Holy Prophet is waiting for me

The Maulana had three sons: Maulana Mohammad from the first wife, and Maulana Mohammad Yahya and Maulana Mohammad Ilyas from the second, who was the maternal granddaughter of Maulana Muzaffar Husain The Maulana had married her after the death of his first wife.

Maulana Mohammed Ilyas

Maulana Mohammed Ilyas was born in 1885 His childhood was spent in maternal grandfather’s home in Kandhla, and with his father at Nizamuddin. In those days, the Kandhla family was the cradle of godliness and piety so much so that reports of the high religiosity nightly devotions and Zikr and Tilawat of its members, both male and female, would seem imaginary and fictitious to the faint-hearted men of our time

The ladies used to recite the Quran themselves in the Nafl prayers as well listen to its Tarawih and other Nafl prayers. standing behind the male relatives The month of Ramadan, in particular, was the springtime for the Quran. It was read for long hours, almost in every home The limit of absorption was that, sometimes, the ladies forgot to pay attention to purdah and would not become aware of the coming of outsiders in the house at a time of urgent need.

The Quran with its translation and commentary in Urdu, and Mazaahir-i-Haq Mashariq ul Anwaar and His-i-Haseen formed the limit of the education of the ladies. Deeds and accomplishments of the families of Syed Ahmad Shaheed and Shah Abdul Aziz were the most popular themes of conversation, and facts regarding these illustrious men of God were on everybody’s lips. Instead of the stories of kings and fairies, ladies of the household related these to the children.

Ammi Bi Maulana Ilyas’s maternal grandmother

The Maulana’s maternal grandmother, Amtus Salam, who was the daughter of Maulana Muzaffar Husain and was known in the family as Ammi Bi, was a very pious lady. About her Salaat, the Maulana, once observed “I saw her likeness of Ammi Bi’s Salaat of Maulana Gangohi”

During the last phase of her life, Ammi Bi’s state was that she never asked for food and ate only when someone placed before her. It was a large family and there was always so much to do. If the thought of having her meal! did not occur to her in the midst of domestic chores, she simply went hungry. Once, someone said to her, “You are so old and weak. How do you manage to without food ?” “I draw sustenance from my Tasbihat (remembrance of Allah) was her repy”

Bi Safia, Maulana Ilyas’s mother

The mother of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas, Bi Safia, had learnt the Quran by heart and attained great distinction in it. It was a regular practice with her to recite the whole of the Quran and additional ten Juze (part) every day during Ramadan. She, thus, completed forty recitals of the Quran in that month and was so fluent in it that her household duties did not suffer on account of it. See, generally, kept herself engaged in some work while doing the recitation. Apart from the month of Ramadan, her daily routine of worship included: DURUD Sharif, 5,000 times; Ism-i-Zaat Allah, 5,000 times; Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, 1,000 times, Yaa Mughnee-u 1,100 times, La illaaha illallaah, 1,200 times Yaa-Haiyyu, Ya Qaiyum 200 times, Hasbiallaah wa ni’mul Vakil, 500 times; Subhan Allah, 200 times; Alhamdu lillaah, 200 times; La ilaaha illallaah, 200 times; Allah O-Akbar, 200 times; Istighfar, 500 times; Ofwwizu amree illallaah, 100 times; Hasbunallaah wa ni’mul Vakil, 1000 times; Rabb-i in-ni maghloobun fantasir, 1,000 times: Rabb-i-inni masanni-az-zurru wa anla ar-hamur rahimeen, 100 times; Laa ilaaha enta subhanaka in-ni kunzu minaz-zalimeen, 100 times. In addition, she recited a Manzil (1/7) of the Quran everyday.

Like all other children in the family, the Maulana Ilyas began his education in the maktab, and, according to the family tradition, learnt the Quran by heart. The learning of the Quran was so common in the family. that in the one-and-a-half row of worshippers in the family mosque, there was not a single non Hafiz except the Muezzin. Maulana Mohammad Ilyas was Ammi Bi’s favorite child. She used to say; to him. “Ilyas, I feel the aroma of the holy Companions in you. ” Sometimes, placing her hand on his back, she would say, “How is it that I see figures resembling the holy Companions moving along with you?

From his childhood, there was present in Maulana Mohammad Ilyas a touch of the religious ardour and fervent feeling of the blessed Companions which had led Shaikhul Hind Maulana Mahmood Hasan to remark that “when I see Mohammad Ilyas, I am reminded of the holy Companions. Eagerness and enthusiasm for Faith were ingrained in his nature. Even in his early days, he, sometimes, did things which were much above the common level of the children. Riazul Islam Kandhlawi, a class fellow of his in .he Maktab, says that “when we were reading in the Maktab, he, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas, once, came with a stick and said, “Comes Riazul Islam, let us do Jihaad against those who do not offer up Salaat

Stay at Gangoh

In 1893, his elder brother, Mohammad Yahya, went to live at Gangoh with Maulana Rasheed Ahmad Gangohi. Maulana Mohammad Ilyas used to live with his father at Nizamuddin, and, sometimes, with his maternal grand-father’s family at Kandhla. At Nizamuddin, his education was being neglected owing to the over- fondness of his father and his own excessive occupation with prayers. Maulana Yahya, thus, requested his father that as the education of Mohammad Ilyas was suffering, he might be allowed to take him to Gangoh. The father agreed – and Maulana Mohammad Ilyas came to Gangoh in 1896 or early 1897 where Mohammad Yahya began to teach him regularly.

Gangoh, in those days, was the seat of Sufi-saints and savants, the benefit of whose company was constantly available to Maulana Mohammad Ilyas. A greater part of his impression able age was spent there. When he went to live at Gangoh, he was 10 or 11 years old, and at the time of Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi death, in 1905, he was a young man of about 20. Thus, he stayed with Maulana Gangohi for about 9 years.

Maulana Mohammad Yahya was an ideal teacher and benefactor. He wanted his brother to derive the utmost advantage from the society of those illustrious men. Maulana Mohammad Ilyas used to tell that when the Ulema who had been the favorite pupils or disciples of Maulana Gangohi came to Gangoh, his brother would, often, stop the lessons and say that his education, then, lay in sitting with them and listening to their conversation.

Usually, Maulana Gangohi did not take bait from children and students. It was only when they had completed their education that he allowed them to take the pledge. But owing to the exceptional merit of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas, he, at his request, permitted him to do the bait at his hand.

Maulana Mohammad Ilyas had been born with a loving heart. Such a strong attachment did he develop for Maulana Gangohi that he felt no peace without him. He would, often, get up in the night, go and see the Maulana’s face, and return to his bed. Maulana Gangohi, too, had a great affection for him. once, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas told his brother of severe headache after which he could not bend his head even to the extent of performing the Sajdah on a pillow for months. Maulana Gangohi son, Hakim Masud Ahmad, who was his physician, had a peculiar method of treatment. In certain diseases, he forbade the use of water for a long time which was :unbearable to most of the patients. But with the strength of mind that was so characteristic of him, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas abided strictly by the advice of his physician and abstained from drinking water for full seven years, and, during the next five years, he drank it only sparingly.

There was little hope that he would be to resume his education after the discontinuation owing to illness. He was very keen to take it up again, but his well-wishers would not allow. One day, as Maulana Mohammad Yahya said to him what he would, in any case, do by studying, he retorted, “What will I do by living?” Ultimately, he succeeded in resuming his studies.

The death of Maulana Gangohi occurred in 1905. Maulana Mohammed Ilyas who was at his bedside during the dying moments and reciting the Sura of Ya-Sin, was so deeply affected by it that he used, often, to say, “Two shocks have been most painful to me. One was of the death of my father, and the other, of the death of Maulana Rasheed Ahmad Gangohi. ” In 1908, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas went to Deoband where he studied Tirmizi and Sahih Bukhari from Maulana Mahmood Hasan. The latter advised him to approach Maulana Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri for spiritual guidance and instruction, since his mentor, Maulana Rasheed Ahmad Gangohi, was no more, and, thus, he completed the various stages of Sulook under Maulana Saharanpuri’s supervision.

Absorption in prayers

During his stay at Gangoh, after the death of Maulana Gangohi, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas, generally, remained silent and spent most of his time in meditation. Says Maulana Mohammad Zakaria, “We read elementary Persian from him those days. His practice, then, was that he sat cross legged, and in utter silence, on a coarse mat behind the tomb of Shah Abdul Quddus. We presented ourselves for the lesson, opened the book, and placed it before him, indicating with the finger where we were to begin from on that day. We would read aloud and translate the Persian verses. When we made a mistake, he would shut the book with a movement of the finger, and the lesson came to an end. It meant that we were to go back, prepare the lesson thoroughly, and, then, come again . . . …………….. He used to offer Nafl prayers much and often at that time. From Maghrib till a little before Isha, he devoted himself exclusively to Nawafil. His age, then, was between 20 and 25 years.

Ardor and eagerness

Ardor and eagerness, without which no real success is possible in any field, were deeply rooted in him. It was by sheer determination and earnestness that he accomplished what he did in spite of persistent ill-health. One day, during his last illness, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas related that “once I was so ill and feeling so weak that I could not go down the stairs. All of a sudden, I heard that Maulana Saharanpuri had come to Delhi and I was so excited that I left for Delhi immediately on foot and forgot all about my illness and exhaustion. It was in the way that I remembered I was sick.

Contact with other spiritual mentors

Regular contact with other spiritual mentors and disciples of Maulana Gangohi was maintained during those days. About Shah Abdur Rahim Raipuri and Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi he used to say that they abided in his heart. They, too, had a great regard and affection for him owing to his extraordinary qualities.

Spirit of Jehad

Together with Zikr, Saga (spiritual exercises and exertions) Nawafil and Ibadaat, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas was, also, infused with the spirit of Jehad. Throughout his life, he was never without it, and had, in fact, taken the pledge of Jehad at the hand of Maulana Mahmood Hasan for that very reason.

Estimation in the eyes of elders

From his early days, he was held in the highest esteem by the elders of the family as well as the spiritual leaders of the day. Maulana Mohammad Yahya was like a father to him, yet the former’s attitude towards his younger brother was like that of the sacred Prophet towards Hazrat Usman Indifferent health prevented him from taking part in duties involving physical labor. He concentrated wholly on his studies, and on Zikr, and other forms of worship. Maulana Mohammad Yahya, on the contrary, was a very industrious person. He owned a bookshop which he managed with great care. It was not only his source of livelihood, but of his brothers as well. One day, the manager of the shop said that Maulana Mohammad Ilyas did not take any interest in the business which was not good for him, too, benefited from it. When Maulana Mohammad Yahya heard of it, he was very angry and remarked that “a Tradition has it that the sustenance that reaches you and the help you receive from the Lord is due to the blessedness of the weaker ones among you. I believe that I am receiving my sustenance owing to the good fortune of this child. Nothing should be said to him in future. If there is anything to say, it should be said to me.


Sometimes, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas was asked to lead the service in the presence of renowned theologians and spiritual leaders. Once Shah Abdur Rahim Raipuri, Maulana Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri and Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi happened to be in Kandhla. When the time for Salaat came and Maulana Mohammad Ilyas was asked to lead it, a senior member of the family, Molvi Badrul Hasan, humorously remarked that “such a small engine has been fastened to so many big carriages.” “It depends on the power (not the size of the engine”, replied one of them.

Career with a teacher in Mazaahirul Uloom

In 1910, a large number of men, including most of the senior teachers of the Madrassa of Mazaahirul Uloom, left for the Haj from Saharanpur. It necessitated the recruitment of new teachers for the Madrassa, Maulana Mohammad Ilyas being one of them. He was given the secondary books to teach. On the return of the senior teachers from the Pilgrimage, all the new entrants were relieved of their duties, but the services of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas were retained.

At Mazaahirul Uloom, the Maulana had to teach some books which he had not read himself as, in Maulana Mohammad Yahya’s scheme of instruction, it was not customary to complete the books, and Maulana Mohammad Ilyas, further, had to miss some secondary books owing to ill-health. During his teaching days, he tried hard to make up for the deficiency and prepared his lectures carefully. For instance, for teaching Kinzul Daqa’iq, he studied Bahr-ur-Ra’iq, Shaami and Hadaya, and consulted even Hisami’s notes and comments when he taught Nurul Anawaar.

Marriage The Maulana married the daughter of his maternal uncle, Maulana Rauful Hasans on Friday, October 17, 1912 was performed by Maulana Mohammad, and Maulana Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri, Shah Abdur Rahim Raipuri an Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanwi, all the three of them, attended the ceremony. Maulana Thanwi’s celebrated sermon, Fuwayid us Suhbat, which has subsequently been published times without number, was delivered on that occasion.

First Haj

In 1915, Maulana Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri and Maulana Mahmood Hasan, decided lo go on the Haj Pilgrimage. When Maulana Mohammad Ilyas came to know of it, he was strongly seized with the desire to perform the Haj. He felt that it would become dark and gloomy in India with their departure and he would not be able to live in Saharanpur any more. But there was the question of permission. As his sister, the wife of Molvi Ikrarnul Hasan, saw his distress, she offered her ornaments to meet the expenses of the Pilgrimage. Contrary to expectations, the Maulana’s mother gave her consent. after which Maulana Mohammad Yahya, also, agreed. The Maulana, then, wrote to Maulana Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri asking for his permission, and explained that as far as she wherewithal for the journey was concerned, three courses were open to him. He could take his sister’s ornaments or borrow the amount or accept the offers of money made by certain relatives. Maulana Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri preferred the third course. Maulana Mohammad Ilyas was fortunate enough to travel by the same boat as Maulana Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri. He sailed in August, 1914 , and returned in February, 1915, to resume the teaching at the Madrassa.

Death of Maulana Mohammad Yahya

The death of Maulana Mohammad Yahya, on Wednesday, the 9th of August, 1915, was an extremely sad and frustrating event for the Maulana. In addition to being a most affectionate brother, he was, also, his teacher and benefactor. He could not get over the shock till the end of his days. He used to get lost in thought and a peculiar kind of abstraction took possession of him when he talked about his brother.

Stay at Nizamuddin

Two years after the death of Maulana Mohammad Yahya, the eldest brother of Maulana Mohamad Ilyas, Maulana Mohammad, also, passed away. He was a man of angelic disposition and an embodiment of affection, piety and humility. He loved solitude and cared little for worldly comforts. He lived in Bangle Wali Masjid, at Nizamuddin, in the place of his late father. There was a Madrassa in the mosque which had been founded by Maulana Mohammad Ismail. Only primary education was imparted in it, and, among its pupils were mostly the children from Mewat. It had no regular source of income and reliance was placed solely upon God for meeting its needs.

Many people of Delhi and Mewat were devoted to Maulana Mohammad and had benefited from his guidance. His face had the radiance of spirituality. He, often, gave the sermon, but in an informal, conversational way. He remained seated during it, and, generally, read out the Traditions on good morals and Zuhd, ( Islamic asceticism ) and explained their meaning in a simple language.

Once Maulana Mohammad developed a boil under an eye which had to be opened seven times. The doctors insisted on administering the anesthetic but he refused to take it and lay motionless throughout the operation. The surgeon, afterwards, said, that he had not seen the like of it in his life.

Maulana Mohammad spent most of his time in prayer and meditation. During the 16 years before his death, he did not miss the Tahajjud( before dawn prayer ) prayers even once, and breathed his last while performing the Sajda in the Namaz of Witr.

Maulana Mohammad Ilyas had route to Delhi to look after his sick brother and was staying with him in the Nawab Wali Masjid of Qassab Pura. It was there that Maulana Mohammad died and the burial took place at Nizamuddin. Thousands of men attended the funeral.

After the burial, people urged upon Maulana Muhammad Ilyas to take up residence at Nizamuddin in order to fill the void caused by the death of his father and brother. They, also, promised monthly donations for the Madrassa to which the Maulana agreed subject to certain conditions which he observed throughout his life.

Maulana Mohammad Ilyas had made it clear that he would come to Nizamuddin and take charge of the Madrassa only if Maulana Khaiil Ahmad Saharanpuri approved. Upon it, several persons offered to go to Saharanpur to obtain the permission, but Maulana Mohammad Ilyas checked them saying that it was not the way to do it. He would go himself, unaccompanied by anyone.

The Maulana, thus, went to Saharanpur and explained the whole thing to Maulana Khalil Ahmad. The latter gave his approval, but added that, in the first instance, only a year’s Ieave be taken from Mazaahirul Uloom and if the stay at Nizamuddin proved useful and it was decided to settle down there permanently, he could resign at any time.

But before Maulana. Muhammad Ilyas could move to Nizamuddin, he was suddenly taken ill with pleurisy and went to Kandhla where his condition worsened. One night his illness took such a grave turn that all hope was lost. The pulse sank and the body became cold, but God had to take some work from him. unexpectedly, he began to improve, and, in a few days, was able to leave the bed.

On regaining health, Maulana came to Nizamuddin from Kandhla. In those days, there was no habitation in that part of Nizamuddin, and, adjoining the mosque, there was a thick growth of trees and underbrush. Maulana Ihtishamul Hasan who, in his childhood, had come to live, for sometime, with Maulana Mohammad Ilyas tells that “I used to go out and stand in the hope of seeing ‘a human face. When anyone appeared, I felt so happy as if someone had given me a precious gift.”

A small pucca (built of bricks) mosque, a shed, a living apartment, a small settlement of the attendants of the tomb to the south of it, and a few Mewati and non-Mewati students that as all that formed the world of the mosque and the Madrassa.

The resources of the Madrassa were so meager that, some times, they had to starve, but. the Maulana bore it all with a cheerful heart. Occasionally, be would say plainly, that there was nothing to eat. Whoever wanted to stay’ might stay and whoever wanted to go might go and make his arrangement elsewhere. The moral and spiritual training the students were receiving, however, was such that none of them. was willing to leave. Often, they would live on wild fruits. The scholars themselves brought wood from the forest to prepare the chappati (flat bread) which they ate with chutney (pickle) The extreme poverty made no impression on the Maulana. What worried him was the prospect of abundance and prosperity which, he was sure, was going to open up, according to the practice of the Lord, after the phase of trial and tribulation.

The outward appearance of the Madrassa held no interest for the Maulana. He was supremely unconcerned with it. Once, during his absence, some residential quarters were built for its staff through the efforts of Haji Abdur Rahman, an old friend of his and an ex-student of the Madrassa, which made the Maulana so angry that he did not speak to him for a long time. The Maulana remarked that the real thing was education, and, referring to a certain Madrassa, said that its building had become pucca, but the standard of education had gone down.

Once a prominent merchant of Delhi begged the Maulana to supplicate to the Lord for him in a very important matter, and presented him a purse. The Maulana agreed to pray on his behalf, but declined to accept the’ money. Haji Abdur Rahman, however, took it in view of the chronic financial difficulties of the Madrassa, but the Maulana had no peace until he had it returned. He used to impress upon Haji Abdur Rahrnan that the work of faith was not carried out with motley, otherwise much wealth would have been granted to the holy Prophet

Worshipfulness Maulana Mohamrnad Ilyas, exclusively, kept himself occupied with prayers and other spiritual exertions in those days. He had inherited the inclination for it from his ancestors which blossomed up during the stay at Nizamuddin. He sought solitude and carried out vigorous exercises for the purification of the soul. According to Haji Abdur Rahman, the Maulana remained in seclusion for long hours at the gate of Arab Sara which was the favorite place of worship of Hazrat Nizmuddin Aulia, and was situated to he north of Humayun’s tomb. near the mausoleum of Abdur Rahim Khan Khana and the grave of Syed Nur Mohammad Badaynni, the spiritual mentor of Mazhar jan-i-Janan. Usually, his mid-day meal was sent there while the evening meal he took at home, He offered the five daily prayers in congregation. Haji Abdur Rahman and his fellow students used to go to the gate to form the congregation, and for their lessons, they, sometimes, went there, and, some times, the Maulana himself came to Chukkar Wali Masjid.

The Maulana performed the Wuzu (abulation) and offered two Rak’ats of Namaz before commencing the lesson of the Traditions, and remarked that the claim of the Traditions was even greater. He did not talk to anyone, however important, while teaching the Traditions, nor ever complained if the meal came late from Nizamuddin, nor found fault with food.

Interest in teaching

The Maulana took keen interest in his pupils and personally taught all the subjects, elementary as well as advanced. Sometimes, he had as many as eighty students directly under his instruction, and took the class of Mustadrak_i_Haakim before Fajr.

The main emphasis in his method of teaching was on the application of mind. He wanted the students to come thoroughly prepared. The Maulana did not follow the general syllabus of the Madrassas in the selection of books and many books that were but prescribed in the other Madrassas were taught at Nizamuddin He thought of new ways to stimulate the students and develop the faculties of imagination and understanding in them.

Beginnings of the movement of Religious Reform in Meewat

The area to the south of Delhi where the Meos have been settled from the olden days is called Mewat, Presently, it includes the Gurgaon district of the Punjab, the native states of Alwar and Bharatpur and the district of Mathura of the United Provinces. Like all other regions, its boundaries, too, have been changing from time to time and the dimensions of the old Mewat must have been different from what they are now.

The English historians hold that the Meos do not come from the Aryan stock, but are related to the non-Aryan races of ancient India. Their history, thus, dates far back than that of the Rajput families of Aryan blood. According to them, the Khanzadas (lowest order of Mughal nobility) of Mewat, however, belong to the same ethnic group as the Rajputs, and, in the Persian history books, wherever the word ‘Mewati’ occurs, it denotes the very Khanzadas. We, further, learn from Ain-i-Akbari that the Jatau Rajputs came to be known as Mewatis on embracing Islam.

In the annals of Firoz Shahi dynasty, Mewat is mentioned, for the first time, in the memoirs of Shamsuddin Al-timash. The Mewatis had become very troublesome during the early days of the Muslim Kingdom of Delhi. Aided by the long range of thick forests that extended up to Delhi, they used to raid it frequently and had become such a terror that the gates of the capital were shut at sunset. Still, they managed to enter the town in the night in search of plunder. Ghayasuddin Balban, thereupon, dispatched a strong military force against the Mewatis, killing a large number of them. Outposts manned by the Afghan soldiers were set up in Delhi, the surrounding forests were cut down and the land was brought under cultivation. Mewat, thereafter, remained in oblivion for about a hundred years

After the long lull, the Mewati adventuress, again, became active and started harassing the people of Delhi which forced the authorities to take punitive action against them from time to time. The names of Bahadur Nahir and his successors are, particularly, mentioned in the chronicles in this connection. They succeeded in establishing the Kingdom of Mewat which was, later, reduced to a Jagir (a feudal estate) by the rulers of Delhi.

Another prominent Mewatis was Lakhan Pal who brought the whole of Mewat and its outlying territory under his domination. He embraced Islam during die reign of Firoz Shah.

Moral and religious condition

Owing to the negligence of the Muslims religious teachers, the moral arid religious condition of the Mewatis had sunk so low that there was little to distinguish between their beliefs and practices and wholesale apostasy. Even non-Muslim historians have commented at length on their estrangement with Islam, as the following extract from the Alwar Gazetteer of 1878, written by Major Powlett, will show:

“All the Meos are, now, Muslims, but only in name. Their village deities are the same as those of the Hindu landlords, and they celebrate several Hindu festivals. Holi is a season of special rejoicing among the Mewatis and they observe it like their own festivals, such as, Moharrum, ‘Id and Shab-i-Barat. The same is the case with Janam Ashtami, Dussehra and Diwali, The Meos engage the services of the Brahmins to fix the dates of marriages. They have Hindu names, with the exception of the word ‘Ram’, and their last name, often, is ‘Singh’, though not as frequently as ‘Khan’. Like Ahirs and Gujars, the Mewatis, too, observe Amawas as a holiday on which they abstain from work. When they build a well, they begin with the construction of a parapet in the name of Beeriyi or Hanuman, but when it comes to pillage, they do not show much reverence to the Hindu temples and other places of religious significance. If, on such an occasion, their attention is drawn to the sanctity of these establishments, they, unhesitatingly, says, ‘You are “Does” and we are “Meos”.’ Meos are, largely, ignorant of their faith, i. e., Islam. Very few of them know the Kalima,’ and fewer still observe Namaz regularly. About the hours and rules of namaz, their ignorance is complete. This is the state of the Meos of Alwar. In the British territory of Gurgaon, the position is a little better because of the Madrassas. In some parts of Alwar, also, where the mosques have been built, the religious duties are observed to some extent. A few of them know the Kalima and offer up namaz and an attachment for the Madrassas, also, is found among them. As we have seen earlier, the initial ceremonies of marriage are performed by the Brahmins, but the real ceremony (of nikah) is performed by the Qazi. Men wear dhoti and loin-cloth. The pajamas are not worn at all. Their dress, thus, is wholly Hinduised. Even ornaments of gold are worn by men.”

At another place, Major Powlett writes:

“The Meos are half-Hindu by their habits. Mosques are rarely to be seen in their villages. There are only eight mosques in the fifty villages of the tehsil of Tijarah. Leaving aside the temples, the places of worship of the Meos are very much similar to those of their Hindu neighbors. These are known, for instance as Paanch Peera, Bhaisa and Chahand Chahand or Khera Deo is consecrated to the service of Maha Davi where animals are offered as a sacrifice. In Shah-i-Barat, the banner of Syed Salar Masud Ghazi is worishipped in all Meo villages.”

Similarly, ii the Gazetteer of Gtrgaon (1910), it is stated that ‘‘the Meos, still, are a very loose and careless type of Muslims. They share most of tile customs of the neighboring community specially those which possess an element of fun and merriment . Their basic rule seems to be to observe the religious celebrations of both the communities and disregard the religious duties of either. Lately, some religious teachers have appeared in Mewat and a few Meos have started to keep the fasts of Ramzan and to build mosques in their villages and observe namaz. Their women, too, have taken to wearing Pyjamas instead of the Hindu Chagras. All these are the signs of religious awakening.”

The Gazetteer of Bharatpur, again, says:

“The customs of Meos are a mixture of Hindu and Muslim customs. They observe circumcision, perform nikah and bury their dead. They make a pilgrimage to the tomb of Syed Salar Masud Giiazj at Bahraich, and attach a great importance to the vow taken under his banner, and consider it a religious duty to fulfill it. They, also, visit the other shrines of India, but do not perform the Hajj. Among the Hindu festivals, they celebrate Holi antI Diwali. They do not marry in the family or in their own branch or sub­division of the clan, girls do not have a share in ancestral property, and they give mixed Hindu and Muslim names to their children. They are, wholly, illiterate and have a fair number of bards and minstrels among them whom they pay liberally. Many quatrains on the themes of agriculture and rural life are popular which they love to recite. Their speech is rough arid coarse, and the manner of addressing both men and women is the same. Intoxicants are widely in use. They are extremely weak of faith and highly superstitious, and believe in omens and auguries. Both male and female dresses are Hinduised. In the olden days, infanticide was prevalent, but now it has been given up. Highway robbery and pillage had been’ their traditional profession, but they have been reformed lately. They. however, are still notorious ifor cattle-ifting.’

Moral virtues

All the same, the Meos are distinguished for some excellent moral qualities and their vices and weaknesses are in the nature of the evil ways and practices that become a part of the moral and social pattern of brave and adventurous races as a result of want of education, isolation from the civilized world and indifference towards religion. These were rampant even among the Arabs during the Age of Ignorance. Natural talents and capabilities had taken a wrong turn owing to the perversity of the environment. Chivalry had degenerated into banditry, man­liness had found expression in mutual warfare and bloodshed, sense of pride and self-respect, with no better purpose to serve, had sought fulfillment in the defense of imaginary standards of honor and renown, and high mindedness, for its display, had adopted the path of pomp and flourish on petty occasions in the family or clan. In brief, God-given gifts of mind and character were being put to unworthy use, otherwise there was no dearth of virtue and merit among the Meos,

Rugged simplicity, hardihood and firmness of purpose were the chief characteristics of the Mewatis in which they were far superior to the urban Muslim population. It was on account of these qualities that in spite of having drifted so far away from Islam, the floodtide of Apostasy could not submerge the territory of Mewat even in the darkest period of its history.

For centuries the Maos had been living within the shell of their ignorance keeping by themselves and isolated from the outside world. A parallel can scarcely he found in the Indian history of a community so large and living in such a close proximity to the central seat of power and yet remaining so obscure and isolated. An advantage of it, however, was that the energies of the Mewatis, on the whole, remained conserved, the soil remained virgin while the deplorable habits and customs and superstitious belief and practices were, so to speak, like the weeds and scrubs growing on an uncultivated land. The Meos, in the 20th Century, were very much like the Arabs in the Age of Perversion

Beginnings As we have seen, contact with the Mewatis was established during the lifetime of Maulana Mohammad lsmail. It was not a chance occurrence, but an act of destiny that Maulana Mohammad Ismail came to live in Basti Nizamuddin which was the gateway of Mewat, and much before the arrival of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas, seeds of loyalty and devotion of his. family had been sown on its soil.

When the followers of Maulana Mohammad Ismail and Maulana Mohammad came to know that their true successor, the son of Maulana Mohammad Ismail and the brother of Maulana Mohammad had come to live at Nizamuddin they, again, started coming to it and requested Maulana Mohammad Ilyas for a visit so that the old suppliants of his family had an opportunity to renew the ties of fealty and spiritual allegiance.

Real remedy

Maulana Mohammad Ilyas felt that the only Way to the religious reform and correction of the Mewatis was promotion of religious knowledge and familiarization with the rules and principles of the Shariat.

Maulana Mohammad ismail, and, after him, Maulana Mohammad had adopted the same method. They used to keep the Mewati children with them and educate them in their Madrassa, and, then, send them back to Mewat to carry on the work of reform and guidance, and what little religious awareness was found there was owing to the efforts of these pioneers.

Maulana Mohammad Ilyas went a step ahead and decided to establish Maktabs and Madrassas in Mewat itself so that the influence of Faith could spread to a wider area and the pace of change was accelerated.

Stipulation The Maulana knew what was, commonly, meant by inviting a spirtua! mentor or his successor to their place by his disciples and admirers, and he was not willing to go to Mewat only to fulfill the formalities of attending the dinner given in his honor delivering a few sermons and giving good counsel. He wanted to make sure before undertaking the trip, that some real advance would be made, as a result of his visit, towards bringing the Meos closer to Islam and improving their moral condition, arid, during those days, the setting up of Maktabs and Madrassas in Mewat appeared to him to be the most effective step in that direction. H had, thus, made it clear that he would accept the invitation only on the condition that they promised to establish Maktabs in their territory.

For the Mewatis, however, no undertaking could be harder to give. They considered the establishment of Maktabs next to impossible for the simple reason that no one would be sending his children to them, and, thus, depriving himself of their contribution to the family income as daily wage-earners. The enthusiasm of those who came to invite quickly subsided as they heard of the stipulation. In desperation, however, a Mewati, finally, made the promise, leaving the rest to God

Establishment of Maktabs

Maulana Mohammad Ilyas, accordingly, went to Mewat and demanded the fulfillment of the promise. After great persuasion, the beginning was made and the first Maktab was established.

The Maulana used to tell the Mawatis, “Give me the pupils, I will provide the money.” The Meos who were, mainly, farmers, could not easily reconcile themselves to the position that their children applied themselves to reading and writing and stopped working in the fields or looking after the cattle. It took a lot of tact and perseverance to bring them round to it.

Ten Maktabs were opened during that visit. Once the ice was broken, the progress was easy. Sometimes, several Maktabs were opened in a day till, within a few years, hundreds of such schools were functioning in Mewat.

The Maulana had not undertaken the service of Faith as a “national cause”, the burden of providing the funds for which fell wholly upon the nation or the community, but as a personal affair and felt no hesitation in spending all he had on it. He believed that a person should perform a religious task as his own and expend his time and money freely in its way.

Once a person presented a purse to him with the request that he used it, exclusively, for his own needs. The Maulana replied, “If we do not regard Allah’s work our own, how can we claim to be His bondmen ?“ With a sigh, he added, “Alas! We are not the just appreciators of the sacred Prophet. We do not know his true worth.”

This was the Maulana’s rule of life. First of all, he spent from his own pocket on the religious endeavor he had launched in Mewat, and, then, alone, would accept help from others.

Passing Away

Due to Maulana Mohammad Ilyas (RA)’s sincerity and hard work the work of Tableegh began to spread and Jamaats started to visit all parts of the sub-continent within his life time. Hazrat Maulana Syed Suleiman Nadwi (RA) remarks, ” Hazrat Maulana Mohammad Ilyas (RA) with his simplicity and dedication to the correct principles of Dawat (invitation) quietly turned the Mewatees into sincere and pious Muslims over a twenty five years and made them the envy of even the Muslims belonging to traditional religious families.

His hard word bore fruit in his life and he raised thousands of dedicated Muslims who continued on the path of Dawat even after his passing away.

Finally the humble, physically weak and thin Maulana passed away in 1324 Hijra leaving behind not one or two but thousands to take up his cause and continue on the path of reformation.

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