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GREAT MUSLIMS OF THE 20TH CENTURY
No. 5
Muhammad Ilyas
By Mumtaz Ahmad, Ph.D.
Mawlana Muhammad Ilyas, the founder of the Tablighi Jama’at of South
Asian subcontinent, is arguably one of the most influential, yet
least well-known , figures of the twentieth century Islam. Despite
his enormous contribution towards the development of a powerful grass
root Islamic Da’wah movement, Mawlana Ilyas has not received much
attention in the literature on modern Islamic movements. Most of the
Western, and even Muslim, scholarships have remain occupied with the
more spectacular and dramatic manifest ions of Islamic revivalist
upsurge. The available literature on Maulana Ilyas and his Tablighi
movement is mostly in Urdu and that too consists mainly of
inspirational works by its leaders and devotional writings by its
followers and supporters.
Mawlana Ilyas was born in 1885 in a small town in the United Province of British India
in a family of religious scholars. He received his early religious education at home
and later went to the famous center of Islamic ed
ucation in Deoband where he studied the Qur’an, Hadith, Fiqh and other Islamic
sciences under the early Deoband luminaries. After completing his education at
Deoband, Mawlana Ilyas took up a teaching position at another f
amous Madarsah Mazaharul Uloom in Saharanpur (U.P., India)
It was at this point in his life that Mawlana Ilyas became aware of the "dismal
Islamic situation" in the Mewat region near Delhi where majority of Muslims were
living a life that had very little to do with Islamic teachi
ngs and practices. Mawlana Ilyas sent several of his disciples to Mewat to survey the
situation and later himself undertook many Da’wah trips there. Mawlana Ilyas met
Mewati Muslims who could not even recite Shahadah and
who had not prayed even once in their life because they did not know how to pray. He
saw Muslims greeting each other in a typical Hindu manner; some had even adopted Hindu
deities and visited Hindu temples to participate
in devotional practices.
Mawlana Ilyas fully aware of the difficult task ahead was, nevertheless, determined to
bring the Meo Muslims back to the fold of true Islam. In the early 1920s, he prepared
a team of young Madrasa graduates from Deoband a
nd Saharanpur and sent them to Mewat to establish a network of Masajid and Madrasas
throughout the region. He soon realized, however, that the Madrasa ulama trained in
the Deoband tradition were simply reproducing their p
rototypes and had no significant impact on society at large. Mawlana Ilyas concluded
that these Madrasas were ill-equipped to produce Muslim preachers who would be willing
to go door to door and remind people of their Isl
amic obligations. These institution were good only for producing religious
functionaries, not Da’wah workers.
It was because dissatisfaction with the Madrasas that Mawlana Ilyas resigned from a
prestigious teaching position at Madrasa Mazaharul Uloom in Saharanpur and came to
Basti Nizamuddin in the old quarters of Delhi to begin
his Da’wah. The Tablighi movement was born in this place in 1926. Basti Nzamuddin
became his permanent residence as well as the headquarter of the Tablighi movement.
The new movement met with dramatic success in relatively short period of time, thanks
to Mawlana Ilyas’s utmost devotion, untiring efforts and sincerity of purpose. As a
result many Muslims joined Mawlana Ilyas to preach
the message of Islam in every town and village of Mewat. The rapid success of his
efforts can be seen from the fact that the first Tablighi conference held in November
1941 in Mewat was attended by 25,000 people many of t
hem had walked on foot for ten to fifteen miles to attend the conference. Sayyid Abul
A’la Mawdudi, the founder of the Jama’at-e-Islami paid glowing tribute to the
spectacular successes of the Da’wah efforts of Mawlana Il
yas in Mewat and elsewhere in India and described the Tablighi movement as a major
step toward the Islamization of Indian Muslim society.
Mawlana Ilyas was neither a charismatic leader like Mawlana Mohammad Ali Jauhar of the
Khilafat movement, nor an outstanding religious scholar like Abul Kalam Azad of the
Indian National Congress. He was not even a good p
ublic speaker like Ataullah Shah Bukhari of the Ahrar movement. Unlike Sayyid Abul
A’la Mawdudi of the Jamaat –e-Islami who was a prolific writer and a systematic
thinker, Mawlana Ilyas did not author a single book in his
life.
Physically frail and intellectually unassuming, Mawlana Ilyas was, nevertheless,
enthused with the zeal of a dedicated Da’wah worker. His passion to reach out to the
Muslim masses and touch them with the message of the Qu
r’an and Sunnah knew no bounds.
Like a true missionary, he was persistent, untiring, and whole-heartedly devoted to
his cause. During one of his many missionary tours of Mewat, he was once hit with a
stick by a peasant upon whom he was impressing the im
portance of leading a religious life. The Mawlana, already physically frail, fell on
the ground and collapsed. When he regained consciousness, he got up and, holding his
assistant affectionately, said: "Look, you have don
e your job. Now would you let me do my job and listen to me for a little while?" As
one of his colleague put it, "Mawlana Ilyas, though a mere skeleton, can work wonders
where he takes up anything."
His eagerness and indomitable determination to reach every Muslim and remind him of
his obligations as a believer took precedence on every thing else. His passionate
concern for the spiritual welfare of his fellow Muslims
caused him great anguish. A friend once came to visit him while he was on his
deathbed. Mawlana Ilyas greeted his friend by telling him. " People out there are
burning in the fire of ignorance and you are wasting your ti
me here inquiring after my health!"
He wanted every Muslim to be on his feet, preaching the message of Islam to others. He
exerted his friends and followers to dedicate their lives to this cause. Once when he
was trying to peruse his audience to volunteer f
or a missionary trip to Kanpur, U.P. India, not a single person responded to his call.
Spotting one of his friends in the audience, Mawlana Ilyas asked him what prevented
him from going to Kanpur. His friend was suffering
from serious ailment and was obviously too weak to travel. He told Maulana Ilyas that
he was "almost dying" and there was no way he could travel. The Mawlana said, "If you
are dying already, you had better die in Kanpur.
"
It is important to note that while Mawlana Ilyas kept himself completely aloof from
politics of the day and focused his program of action exclusively on making the
Muslims aware of their religious obligations, he did not,
at any time, criticized those Islamic groups which were actively engaged in politics.
On the contrary, he maintained extremely cordial relations with Hussain Ahmad Madani
and other Ulama of Deoband school whose political
organization, Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind, a pro-Indian National Congress group, was very
much active in Indian politics. Mawlana Ilyas had equally warm relation with
pro-Pakistan faction of the Deoband school led by Mawlana Ash
raf Ali Thanvi and Mawlana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani. However he refused to take any
position on the issue of united India vs. a separate Muslim state of Pakistan for the
obvious reason that this would distract his movement fr
om its main religious tasks, and would also create dissensions within its ranks.
Mawlana Ilyas was of the view that the Tablighi movement and the politically-oriented
Islamic groups, although operating in two different sp
heres, were complementing each other’s work and hence there should be no competition
and rivalry between them.
Once when someone pointed out that his movement was "too narrowly focused" and did not
address the larger issue of socio-political reforms in Muslim society, the Mawlana
responded that this narrow focus in the initial pha
se of the movement was necessitated by the available manpower and that the movement
could grow to encompass a larger and more comprehensive program in the future. It is
unfortunate that those who succeeded Mawlana Ilyas d
id not realize his larger vision and saw the Mewat model of Da’wah as eternally fixed.
Nevertheless, the fruits of Mawlana Ilyas’s efforts are visible all over the world
today.
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