Author: Sayyed Musleh Uddin
Deoband: The Mother of Religious Schools in the Indian Subcontinent (Part Four)
The Role of Muslim Scholars in the 1857 Revolution
Finally, the Indian nation declared its general dissatisfaction with the colonialists and launched a bloody revolution in 1274 AH/1857 AD. The Muslim emirs, scholars, and people, and some Hindus who were wounded by British rule, rebelled against the British in order to escape the prevailing situation. The main point of this revolution was the native Indian soldiers. They killed a number of British commanders and marched from all over the country towards Delhi. The Muslims, who had fueled the fire of this dissatisfaction, placed themselves at the forefront of the movement because they saw the cornerstone of political power in these grievances. Among the first units called to the rebellion were the native cavalry of the Third Muslim Division; they were the ones who rode from Meerut to Delhi to appoint Bahadur Shah as the leader of the revolutionaries. On the evening of May 11, 1857, a day after the Meerut rebellion, it was announced by the firing of 21 cannons that Bahadur Shah, whom most of the people of India, Hindus and Muslims alike, recognized as the ruler of India, had accepted the mantle of his ancestors, Akbar Shah, Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, and had returned to his position. It almost seemed as if the days of Mughal glory had returned in Delhi. A proclamation issued in the name of the Mughal Emperor called upon all who wished to save their religion to join the army, help their religion and not to leave any English infidel alive. Muslim scholars in this revolution in many cases took the leadership of the revolutionaries in different areas. Maulvi Ahmadullah (MABH) was the popular leader of the warriors who defeated the forces of Sir Colin Campbell who were fighting to conquer Odisha in the summer of 1858.
Another Muslim scholar who commanded part of the revolutionary forces was Mawlana Rahmatullah Karanvi (MABH). He was a virtuous and respected person who had written works criticizing Christianity and was fighting the British white army around the karaneh. The Mujahedeen under his command would gather for training in the courtyard of the Jameh Mosque in the karaneh after the afternoon prayer, drums would be played and the general public would gather and it would be announced: The kingdom belongs to Allah and the rule is from Mawlana Rahmatullah. He even came to Delhi from the karaneh to learn about the news of the jihad and stayed near the Red Fort and in the Mawlana Muhammad Hayat Mosque. In Tahanaboon, southeast of Delhi, famous scholars and sheikhs such as Haj Imdadullah Tahanvi (MABH), Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Ganguhi (MABH), Mawlana Liaqat Ali (MABH), Hafiz Muhammad Zaman Shaheed (MABH) and Mawlana Abdul Hakim (MABH), along with a Muslim military commander named General Bakht Khan, participated in this revolution, and other scholars also contributed to it.
A consultative council was formed in Tahanaboon and Haj Imdadullah was appointed as Amir-ul-Momineen. Hafiz Zaman was appointed as Amir-ul-Jihad, Mawlana Muhammad Qasim as the commander of the forces, Mawlana Muhammad Munir Nanotvi and Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Ganguhi as their advisors.
The revolution of 1857 was one of the most famous popular uprisings of the 19th century. Initially, the Indians had the upper hand, and the British living in India found themselves in a difficult position. But by the end of the hot season and the possibility of sending fresh British troops, as well as the end of the Anglo-Persian war, the British government found the opportunity to send new soldiers to India. The situation changed by the arrival of reinforcements, and the Indian soldiers could not resist and Delhi fell to the British. By the fall of Delhi, the revolution collapsed.
After the fall of Delhi in September 1857, the Muslims were caught in the disastrous and deadly revenge of the colonialists and were massacred. A massacre that Ghalib, the famous Urdu poet, described as an ocean of blood and said: Here is a vast ocean of blood before me, only Allah knows what more we will see. The elite and the common people of the Muslims were not spared from the massacre by the British. In those terrible days, twenty-three thousand Muslims were executed and the massacre continued for seven days.
They tried Bahadur Shah and exiled him to Rangoon, and the English Lieutenant Hudson promptly killed three of the Mughal emirs, and twenty-four of the princes were also tried and executed. Zahir Dehlavi (1835-1911) wrote in his book Dastan Ghadar: The English soldiers shot everyone they encountered. Among them were Mian Muhammad Amin Panjhekash, a great writer, and Maulvi Imam Bakhsh Basma’i and his two sons. They were taken to the Raj Ghat gate, shot and killed, and their bodies were thrown into the Jumna River. The Mujahid scholars also suffered the fate of other fighters. William Taylor, an Englishman, arrested the prominent reformist Maulvi, Shah Muhammad Hussain, Ahmadullah, and Waiz-ul-Haq on charges of plotting an uprising in Patna. And a group of prominent scholars and Muslims were tried in Patna and Lahore in 1281 AH (1864 AD).
Among those tried were Mawlana Yahya Ali, Muhammad Jafar Tahansiri, and Muhammad Shafi Lahori, who were sentenced to death. They showed an unexpected reaction to their death sentence by expressing joy. The judge told them: I will be happy to see you hanging on the gallows; the English used to come to the prison with their wives to express their joy at seeing the scholars sentenced to death, but they saw that the condemned to death were happy and considered execution as martyrdom in the way of Allah, which was a heavy burden for the English. One of the English judges said: He does not want them to be happy and achieve their wish and be honored by martyrdom, which they consider a great honor, so he changed the sentence and exiled them to the Andaman Islands. This is how Maulvi Yahya Azimabadi, his brother Maulvi Ahmadullah Azimabadi, Maulvi Abdul Rahim Sadeqpuri and Muhammad Jafar Tahansiri were exiled to the Andaman Islands in 1865. In addition to them, some other scholars, including Allama Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi, Mufti Ahmad Kakurvi and Mufti Mazhar Karim Daryabadi, were also exiled to Andaman. The British were trying to arrest other militant scholars. For this purpose, they announced a reward for the arrest of Hajj Imdadullah Tahanvi, Mawlana Muhammad Qasim Nanotavi and Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Ganguhi. As a result, Hajj Imdadullah said goodbye to his homeland and took the path of the Two Holy Mosques. The administration of India was transferred from the East India Company to the British government on August 2, 1858, and the Queen of England declared India a part of the British Empire. Three months later, on October 1, 1858, Lord King read out the Queen’s decree of general pardon in Allahabad. At first, people thought that this was a general pardon, but it was not a general pardon and the following exceptions were included in it.
Those who had personally been involved in the murder of British subjects, or had deliberately sheltered the murderers;
Those who were among the leaders of the rebels;
Those who incited the people to rebellion and chaos were not included in this amnesty.
Therefore, Mawlana Muhammad Qasim Nanotavi, Hajj Imdadullah and Allama Rashid Ahmad Ganguhi were not included in this amnesty, because they were among the leaders of the Jihad movement and many members of the British forces had been killed by them. Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Ganguhi was interrogated in Muzaffarnegar prison for six months, after the end of the interrogation, the court verdict was read out and Allama Ganguhi was acquitted and released. However, Mawlana Nanotavi was wanted until 1860, but they never succeeded in arresting him. Thus, Mawlana Muhammad Qasim Nanotavi, one of the scholars who survived the sad outcome of the 1857 revolution, decided to change the method of fighting colonialism, which led to the founding of the Darul Uloom school in the village of Deoband.
Continues…
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