Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi (1833–1884) was an Indian

Islamic scholar In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...

, and one of the earliest teachers of Islamic Madrassa in Deoband, famously called Darul Uloom Deoband in India. He was the first principal of Darul Uloom Deoband.

Name and lineage

His ism (

given name A given name (also known as a forename or first name) is the part of a personal name quoted in that identifies a person, potentially with a middle name as well, and differentiates that person from the other members of a group (typically a ...

) was Muhammad Yaqub. His ''

nasab Arabic language names have historically been based on a long naming system. Many people from the Arabic-speaking and also Muslim countries have not had given/ middle/ family names but rather a chain of names. This system remains in use throughou ...

'' (

patronymic A patronymic, or patronym, is a component of a personal name based on the given name of one's father, grandfather (avonymic), or an earlier male ancestor. Patronymics are still in use, including mandatory use, in many countries worldwide, alt ...

) is: Muhammad Yaqub ibn Mamluk Ali ibn Ahmad Ali ibn Ghulam Sharaf ibn Abdullah ibn Abd al-Fath ibn Muhammad Mu'in ibn Abd al-Sami ibn Muhammad Hashim ibn Shah Muhammad ibn Qadhi Taha ibn Mubarak ibn Amanullah ibn Jamaluddin ibn Qadhi Meeran ibn Mazharuddin ibn Najmuddin Saani ibn Nuruddin Rab'i ibn Qiyamuddin ibn Ziya-ud-din ibn Nuruddin Salis ibn Najmuddin ibn Nuruddin Saani ibn Ruknuddin ibn Rafi-ud-Din ibn Baha'uddin ibn Shihabuddin ibn Khwaja Yusuf ibn Khalil ibn Sadruddin ibn Ruknuddin Samarqandi ibn Sadruddin al-Haaj ibn Ismaeel ash-Shaheed ibn Nuruddin al-Qitaal ibn Mahmood ibn Baha-ud-din ibn Abdullah ibn Zakariyyah ibn Nur ibn Sirah ibn Shadi as-Siddiqi ibn Waheeduddin ibn Masood ibn Abd al-Razaq ibn

Qasim Qasim, Qasem or Casim may refer to: * Qasim (name), a given name of Arabic origin and the name of several people * Port Qasim, port in Karachi, Pakistan * ''Kasım'' and ''Casim'', respectively the Ottoman Turkish and Romanian names for General To ...

ibn

Muhammad Muhammad ( ar, مُحَمَّد; 570 – 8 June 632 CE) was an Arab religious, social, and political leader and the founder of Islam. According to Islamic doctrine, he was a prophet divinely inspired to preach and confirm the mo ...

ibn

Abu Bakr Abu Bakr Abdallah ibn Uthman Abi Quhafa (; – 23 August 634) was the senior companion and was, through his daughter Aisha, a father-in-law of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, as well as the first caliph of Islam. He is known with the honor ...

Early life and education

Muhammad Yaqub was born in 1833, coinciding 13 Safar 1249 AH in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

, in the town of

Nanauta Nanauta is a town and a nagar panchayat (municipality) in Saharanpur district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of Uttar Pradesh. Nanauta is located on Saharanpur Delhi Highway. It is from Saharanpur city. It is from Shamli ...

, part of the Saharanpur District of the modern province of

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh (; , 'Northern Province') is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populated state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was established in 1950 ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

. His father, Mamluk Ali, was one of the senior Muslim scholars of India at the time, and the head of Oriental Studies at ''Madrassa Gaziuddin Khan''. Muhammad Yaqub studied most of the Islamic sciences under his father and Shah Abd al-Ghani Mujaddidi. His other teachers include Ahmad Ali Saharanpuri. Muhammad Yaqub was trained in tasawwuf under Haji Imdadullah and received ''khilafah'' (authorization) from him in the

Chishti The Chishtī Order ( fa, ''chishtī'') is a tariqa, an order or school within the mystic Sufi tradition of Sunni Islam. The Chishti Order is known for its emphasis on love, tolerance, and openness. It began with Abu Ishaq Shami in Chisht, a ...

, Naqshbandi,

Qadiri The Qadiriyya (), also transliterated Qādirīyah, ''Qadri'', ''Qadriya'', ''Kadri'', ''Elkadri'', ''Elkadry'', ''Aladray'', ''Alkadrie'', ''Adray'', ''Kadray'', ''Kadiri'', ''Qadiri'', ''Quadri'' or ''Qadri'' are members of the Sunni Qadiri ta ...

, and Suhrawardi orders.

Career

In 1852, Muhammad Yaqub was appointed as a teacher in Government College Ajmer. At the recommendation of the College principal, he was offered the post of Deputy collector, which he rejected. He was transferred to Banaras, and later promoted to the post of Deputy Inspector, Saharanpur. In 1866, Muhammad Yaqub was appointed as the principal of Darul Uloom Deoband. Concerning his appointment in the Deoband seminary, Muhammad Miyan Deobandi writes that, "Seeing the increase in students day to day, it became a concern to get good teachers and thus Maulana Muhammad Yaqub was called to be the principal who was then teaching either in Ajmer or somewhere else." Students of Muhammad Yaqub include most of the second-generation Islamic scholars such as

Mahmud Hasan Deobandi Mahmud Hasan Deobandi (also known as Shaykh al-Hind; 1851–1920) was an Indian Muslim scholar and an activist of the Indian independence movement, who co-founded the Jamia Millia Islamia university and launched the Silk Letter Movement for t ...

Aziz-ur-Rahman Usmani Aziz-ul-Rahman Usmani (also written as Azizur Rahman Usmani) (died 1928) was an Indian Sunni Muslim scholar who served as first Grand Mufti of Darul Uloom Deoband. He is best known for his ''Fatawa Darul Uloom Deoband''. His brother was Shabbir ...

, Sayyid Mumtaz Ali,

Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad (also known as Muhammad Ahmad Nanautawi) (1862-1930) was an Indian Muslim scholar, who served as the Vice Chancellor of the Darul Uloom Deoband for thirty five years. He was the Grand Mufti of the Hyderabad State from 1922 t ...

Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri Abū Ibrāhīm K͟halīl Aḥmad ibn Majīd ‘Alī Anbahṭawī Sahāranpūrī Muhājir Madanī ( ur, ; December 185213 October 1927) was a Deobandi Hanafi Islamic scholar from India who authored ''Badhl al-Majhud'', an 18-volume commentar ...

and

Ashraf Ali Thanwi Ashraf Ali Thanwi (often referred as Hakim al-Ummat and Mujaddid e Millet; 19 September 1863 – 20 July 1943) was a late-nineteenth and twentieth-century Sunni scholar, jurist, thinker, reformist and the revival of classical sufi thought from ...

Death and legacy

Muhammad Yaqub Nanautavi died of cholera at age 51 in 1884 and was buried in his hometown,

Family life

Muhammad Yaqub was maternal uncle of the Hadith scholar

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi 1833 births 1884 deaths Deobandis Indian Sunni Muslim scholars of Islam 19th-century Muslim scholars of Islam People of British India Academic staff of Darul Uloom Deoband People from Nanauta