Syed Kamaluddin Zafree

Kamaluddin Abdullah Zafree ( ar, كمال الدين عبد الله الظفري, bn, কামালুদ্দীন আব্দুল্লাহ জাফরী; born 5 March 1945) is an Islamic scholar from Bangladesh. He is the founder of the non-profit Bangladesh Islami University, currently serving as the chairman of its Board of Trustees, and has established many madrasas and orphanages across the country. Zafree is also a member of the Supreme Council of the Muslim World League and a member of the Central Sharia Board for the Islamic Banks of Bangladesh. He currently serves as the imam of the Uttara Jame Mosque in Dhaka.

Early life and family

Zafree was born on 3 March 1945, to a scholarly Bengali Muslim family of Sayeds in the village of Syed Auliya in Burhanuddin, Bhola Island. The family trace ancestry to an Arab Islamic preacher, known by locals as Syed Auliya, who had arrived in South Bengal with his family in the eighteenth century. They were granted two small islands east and west of the coast of Bhola rent-free by the erstwhile '' jagirdar'' Agha Baqer Khan, which now constitutes the Syed Auliya village. Zafree's paternal grandfather, Mufti Sayed Abdul Hadi, was a ''khalifah'' of Furfura Sharif's Mohammad Abu Bakr Siddique, a gold medalled graduate of the Calcutta Alia Madrasa and the founder of the local Mirzakalu Islamia Fazil Madrasa. His father, Sayed Abu Zafar Abdullah, was a famed '' mawlana'' and the principal of the aforementioned madrasa. Zafree's mother, Fatema Khatun, was the daughter of Alhaj Maqbul Ahmed of Mahadevpur, a ''khalifah'' (successor) of the Pir of Kolagachia and acquaintance of Syed Abdul Ghani Madani.

Education and early career

Zafree completed his primary education at the village '' maktab'', before joining the Mirzakalu Islamia Fazil Madrasa whose principal at that time was his father. At an early age, Zafree founded the '' Namaz Qayem Parishad'', which encouraged local youth to establish prayers. In 1956, Zafree enrolled at the Kumradi Darul Uloom Senior Fazil Madrasa in Shibpur, Narsingdi, which was one of the best '' alia madrasas'' in East Bengal at the time. Aged only eleven years, Zafree was unable to cope at Kumradi and returned to Mirzakalu Madrasa. He passed his ''dakhil'' qualification from Mirzakalu in 1958. He then returned to Kumradi for four years, completing his ''alim'' qualification in 1962. Although he spent two more years undertaking the ''fazil'' course in Kumradi, he could not take the examinations and was returned home, where he completed the exams at Mirzakalu in 1964.

Zafree then enrolled at the Government Madrasah-e-Alia in Dhaka, for his higher education and ''kamil'' degree. However, he became engrossed with numerous responsibilities and was unable to continue his studies there. Due to the critical situation in erstwhile East Pakistan, Zafree joined the '' Jamiat Ettehadul Ulama'' presided by Muhammad Abdul Ali, a member of the East Pakistan Provincial Assembly. Despite being a student, Zafree was appointed as the vice-president of the organisation's East Pakistan branch from 1967 to 1968 due to his fluency in both Bengali and Urdu