Acharya Maulana Shams Naved Usmani
He founded World Organisation of Religion and Knowledge at Rampur in order to promote research on other faiths from a distinctly Islamic perspective and to launch a programme of publications. Presently, the organisation is headed by Acharya Maulana
Usmani’s chief disciple, Sayyed Abdullah Tariq who is an engineer by professional training. The organization regularly organizes programs and lectures delivering the precious knowledge largly unknown to both hindus and muslims.
The organization can be contacted for organizing a program in your area.
The address of World Organisation of Religion and Knowledge,India:
World Organisation of Religion and Knowledge,
Abdullah Tariq,
Bazar Nasrullah Khan
Rampur,U.P,India -244901.
Email:tariqsa@sancharnet.in, satariq92@yahoo.com
‘Acharya’ and ‘Maulana’ are two titles that rarely, if ever, go together. The former is a term generally reserved for Brahmin teachers of the Hindu scriptures, particularly the Vedas. ‘Maulana’ is a title of respect for an Islamic scholar. Few sholars in India, except some noted medieval Sufis, could have claimed to have mastered both the Vedas and the Quran, and the late Acharya Maulana Shams Naved Usmani was one of these rare personalities.
He also had a Bachelor’s degree form one of the modern institutions- the Lucknow University. Author of numerous books on the Hindu and Islamic scriptures,
Acharya Maulana Usmani was a passionate advocate of Hindu-Muslim inter-faith dialogue, spawning a new trend in Indian Muslim literary and activist circles. Here we seek to explore Acharya Maulana Usmani’s contribution to inter-religious dialogue in contemporary India, examining its major thrust and its underlying agenda.
Acharya Maulana Usmani’s thought inspired the writing of a number of texts by his disciples.
He started a major movement, which gained a massive momentum due to simple yet deep comparative religious study of Hinduism and Islam and whose associate Hindus and Muslims have worked to change the hearts of thousands of people towards communal
brotherhood.
Acharya Maulana Usmani chartered a new course in Islamic literature in India, seeking a commitment to inter-faith dialogue. His spirit is the moving force behind his disciples’ pens Life and Works
Shams Naved Usmani was born in 1931 at the town of Deoband in northern India, the centre of a powerful movement of Islamic reform. His family, the Usmanis, claimed descent from the third Caliph of the Sunnis, Usman (d.35/656), and was known for the numerous scholars it had produced. Among the well-known ulama who belonged to the family were such figures as Allamah Shabbir Ahmad Usmani (d.1369/1949), who later went on to become one of the foremost Islamic scholars in Pakistan and Maulana Amir Usmani, a well-known writer and editor of the Urdu monthly, Tajalli.
He began his education by studying Arabic and Persian at home, after which, at the age of ten, he enrolled at the Dar ul-Ulum at Deoband in order to train as an aalim, graduating in 1945. Later he recived a Bachelor’s degree form the Lucknow
university. In 1954 he was appointed as an English teacher at the Government Oriental College, Rampur.Acharya Maulana Usmani was a gifted writer, and began contributing articles to various Urdu periodicals at a young age.Usmani believed that it was the principal duty of Muslims to actively work to present God’s message to others. He lived in a small two-room rented apartment in Rampur, spending much time in prayer and meditation.Following in the path of numerous Sufis before him, Acharya Maulana Usmani took an interest in the scriptures of other religions. He spent several years learning and mastering Sanskrit, the language of the Brahminical scriptures, after which he is said to have made a detailed study of the Vedas, the Upanishads and the Gita, in addition to the Bible. Like many Sufis, he came to believe that the most appropriate way to carry on the Islamic daawah in India was to express Islam in terms that the Hindus would find familiar and intelligible, and to this concern he focussed much of his attention. He gathered a number of close disciples around him, several of whom later went on to popularise his views through their own writings.
“Agar ab bhi na jaage toh (If You Do Not Wake Up Now Then)”
(English translation: Now or Never by Abdullah Tariq) Having been through over ten editions and translated into several Indian languages as well as English, Acharya Maulana Usmani’s Agar Abhi Na Jage To (If You Do Not Wake Up Now) is his most well known work. It is said to have been the product of fifteen long years of research, first coming out in the form of several instalments in the Delhi-based Urdu paper, Akhbar-i Nau. It is, to summarise its contexts, a heart-rending plea to the Muslims to wake up to the fact that the Hindus are the
community of Noah (called prophet Nooh in Islam and Nyooh or Manu in hinduism) and that the Vedas are the divine scriptures, which Noah was commissioned by God to deliver to his people.
