The Jamiatul Ulama Transvaal now the Jamiatul Ulama South Africa (Council of Muslim Theologians ), headquartered in Fordsburg, Johannesburg, was founded in 1923 to serve the Muslim community of the (now defunct) Transvaal Province of South Africa. [1] It publishes a weekly online newsletter. [2]
It currently operates in the provinces that formerly made up the Transvaal, as well as in the Free State Province, and is one of a number of national Muslim organizations in South Africa.
The organization has been characterized as fundamentalist and Deobandi, [3] and it is widely perceived as having links with the Tablighi Jamaat.
Large number of Muslims subscribe to decisions regarding fiqh (Islamic law) in the region where the organization operates. It also has significant influence on the running of many mosques and madrassahs in the region.
The Jamiatul Ulama South Africa has been criticised for its largely apolitical stance during the apartheid era. The organization, unlike its counterpart in KwaZulu-Natal, the Jamiatul Ulama KwaZulu-Natal was accused by more activist Islamic scholars at the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of not speaking out against the tricameral system, which denied black South Africans political power, while giving limited rights to Coloureds and Indians.
The Jamiatul Ulama South Africa owns and manages a community radio station called Radio Islam that broadcasts on the Witwatersrand. A complaint was made by an organization to the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa in 1998 that the radio station was not allowing women to be heard on air. The station argued that Islam does not allow women's voices to be heard. The authority ruled against the station, and in response, the station collected a petition of 28,000 names from women who it claimed supported the decision to bar women from the airwaves.
The organization again made headlines in 2006 when it obtained an interdict against several South African newspaper companies in the Johannesburg High Court against the republishing of cartoons depicting the Islamic prophet, Muhammad. See: Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. This case raised important questions about the limits of freedom of expression in South Africa.
The Deobandi movement or Deobandism is a revivalist movement within Sunni Islam that adheres to the Hanafi school of law. It formed in the late 19th century around the Darul Uloom Madrassa in Deoband, India, from which the name derives, by Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, and several others, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857–58. They consider themselves the continuation of Ahlus Sunnah wal Jamaat. The main purpose of this movement was to reject the traditional Sunni practices such as visiting shrines, celebrating “urs” and other orthodox sunni-sufi practices, which they consider as Shirk and Bidah. Heavily influenced by Salafism and Wahhabism; they opposed influence of non-Muslim cultures on the Muslim of South Asia. The movement pioneered education in religious sciences through the Dars-i-Nizami associated with the Lucknow-based ulema of Firangi Mahal with the goal of preserving traditional Islamic teachings from the influx of modernist, secular ideas during British colonial rule. The Deobandi movement's Indian clerical wing, Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, was founded in 1919 and played a major role in the Indian independence movement through its participation in the Pan-Islamist Khalifat movement and propagation of the doctrine of composite nationalism.
The Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic seminary in India at which the Sunni Deobandi Islamic movement began. Uttar Pradesh-based Darul Uloom is one of the most important Islamic seminaries in India and the largest in the world. It is located in Deoband, a town in Saharanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. The seminary was established by Muhammad Qasim Nanautavi, Fazlur Rahman Usmani, Sayyid Muhammad Abid and others in 1866. Mahmud Deobandi was the first teacher and Mahmud Hasan Deobandi was the first student.
South Africa is a Christian majority nation with Islam being a minority religion, practised by roughly 1.6% of the total population. Islam in South Africa has grown in three different phases. The first phase brought the earliest Muslims as part of the involuntary migration of slaves, artisans, political prisoners, and political exiles from the Dutch East Indies to the Cape Colony from 1652 to 1800. The second phase was the arrival of indentured labourers from British India to work in the sugar-cane fields in Natal from 1860 to 1911. Of the approximately 176,000 Indians of all faiths who were transported to the Natal province, almost 7–10% of the first shipment were Muslims.
The Barelvi movement, also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wa'l-Jamaah is a Sunni revivalist movement following the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence, and Maturidi and Ashʿari schools of theology with hundreds of millions of followers. The movement is moderate form of Islam that Muslims in South Asia have followed for centuries and it encompasses a variety of Sufi orders, including the Chistis, Qadiris, Suhrawardis and Naqshbandis as well as many other orders and sub-orders of Sufism. They consider themselves to be the continuation of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy before the rise of Salafism and Deobandi Movement.
Shamima Shaikh was South Africa's best known Muslim women's rights activist, notable Islamic feminist and journalist.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam is a Deobandi Sunni Muslim organization that was founded on 26 October 1945 by Shabbir Ahmad Usmani as a pro-Pakistan offshoot of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JUH). It has run candidates for office in Pakistani provincial and national elections, and splintered into several groups in 1980, 2007, and 2020.
Jamiat ul-Ulama meaning Council of Theologians in Arabic could refer to:
Darul Uloom Nadwatul Ulama is an Islamic seminary in Lucknow, India. It was established by the Nadwatul Ulama, a council of Muslim scholars, on 26 September 1898.
Mahmud Hasan Deobandi 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 the freedom of India. He was the first student to study at the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary. His teachers included Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi and Mahmud Deobandi, and he was authorized in Sufism by Imdadullah Muhajir Makki and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi.
Ebrahim Desai was a South African Muslim scholar and jurist who established the Darul Iftaa Mahmudiyyah, the Askimam fatawa portal and served as the senior professor of hadith at Madrasah In'aamiyyah. He was an alumnus of Jamiah Islamiah Talimuddin Dabhel and ranked among The 500 Most Influential Muslims. He authored books including Commentary on Qaseedah Burdah, Introduction to Hadīth and Introduction to Islamic Commerce.
Abdullah Darkhawasti (1887–1994) was a Pakistani Sunni Islamic scholar and former Amir of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. He co-founded Markazi Jamiatul Ulama-e-Islam along with Mufti Mahmud, Ahmad Ali Lahori and others in 1956.
The Muslim Students Association of South Africa is a representative collective of the various Muslim Students Association (MSA) chapters which can be found in the different tertiary institutions throughout South Africa.
Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi (1833–1884) was an Indian Islamic scholar, 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.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind or Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind is one of the leading organizations of Islamic scholars belonging to the Deobandi school of thought in India. It was founded in November 1919 by a group of Muslim scholars including Abdul Bari Firangi Mahali, Kifayatullah Dehlawi, Muhammad Ibrahim Mir Sialkoti and Sanaullah Amritsari.
Nizāmuddīn Asīr Adrawi was an Indian Sunni Muslim scholar, biographer, historian and author in the Urdu language. He established Madrassa Darus Salam in Adari and served as Officer In Charge of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind in Lucknow from 1974 to 1978.
Muhammad Miyan Deobandi was an Indian Sunni Islamic scholar, academic, historian, freedom struggle activist, who served as the fifth general secretary of the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind. He wrote books such as Aseeraan-e-Malta, Ulama-e-Hind Ka Shaandar Maazi and Ulama-e-Haqq Aur Unke Mujahidana Karname.
Hifzur Rahman Seoharwi was an Indian Sunni Islamic scholar and an activist of the Indian independence movement, who served as the fourth general secretary of the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind. He fought against British rule for 25 years (1922-1947) and spent eight years in jail. As a politician, he opposed the partition of India, and served as a member of the Indian Parliament for the Indian National Congress from Amroha from 1952 to 1962.
This bibliography of Deobandi Movement is a selected list of generally available scholarly resources related to Deobandi Movement, a revivalist movement within Sunni Islam, adhering to the Hanafi school of law, formed in the late 19th century around the Darul Uloom Deoband in British India, from which the name derives, by Qasim Nanawtawi, Rashid Ahmad Gangohi and several others, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857–58. It is one of the most influential reform movements in modern Islam. Islamic Revival in British India by Barbara D. Metcalf was the first major monograph specifically devoted to the institutional and intellectual history of this movement. Muhammad Tayyib Qasmi wrote a book named The Tradition of the Scholars of Deoband: Maslak Ulama-i-Deoband, a primary source on the contours of Deobandi ideology. In this work, he tried to project Deoband as an ideology of moderation that is a composite of various knowledge traditions in Islam. This list will include Books and theses written on Deobandi Movement and articles published about this movement in various journals, newspapers, encyclopedias, seminars, websites etc. in APA style. Only bibliography related to Deobandi Movement will be included here, for Darul Uloom Deoband, see Bibliography of Darul Uloom Deoband.
Darul Uloom Deoband was established in 1866 in the Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India, as part of the anti-British movement. It gave rise to a traditional conservative Sunni movement known as the Deobandi movement. The Deobandi Movement has an international presence today, with its full-fledged manifestation in South Africa, a country where the movement was initiated through the Indian Gujarati merchant class. The Islamic education system of the Deobandi movement, as well as the necessary components of social and political organizations such as Tablighi Jamaat, Sufism and Jamiat, are fully functioning effectively in South Africa, as they do in India. Madrasas in South Africa provide Islamic higher education and are now centers for Islamic education for foreigners who are interested in receiving a Deobandi-style education. Many of their graduates, especially from Western countries such as the United Kingdom and the United States, are Western students. Some of South African madrasas are recognized globally, providing fatwa services. South Africa is now known for producing exceptional Islamic literature through translation and compilation. Similarly, the Tabligh Jamaat is a hub in South Africa that spreads throughout South and East Africa. Graduates of South African madrassas spend their time in the path of the Tabligh Jamaat. Through the work of several spiritual personalities of the Deobandis, the tradition of Deoband's Tasawwuf (Sufism) has taken root in South Africa. Among them are Zakariyya Kandhlawi, Masihullah Khan, Mahmood Hasan Gangohi and Asad Madani. South African Deobandi Muslims have many important and influential educational and socio-political organizations that educate the people and play an important role in religious and social activities. Among them are Jamiatul Ulama South Africa and the Muslim Judicial Council.
Deobandi jihadism is a militant interpretation of Islam that draws upon the teachings of the Deobandi movement, which originated in the Indian subcontinent in the 19th century. The Deobandi movement underwent three waves of armed jihad. The first wave involved the establishment of an Islamic territory centered on Thana Bhawan by the movement's elders during the Indian Rebellion of 1857, before the founding of Darul Uloom Deoband. Imdadullah Muhajir Makki was the Amir al-Mu'minin of this Islamic territory. However, after the British defeated the Deobandi forces in the Battle of Shamli, the territory fell. Following the establishment of Darul Uloom Deoband, Mahmud Hasan Deobandi led the initiation of the second wave. He mobilized an armed resistance against the British through various initiatives, including the formation of the Samratut Tarbiat. When the British uncovered his Silk Letter Movement, they arrested him and held him captive in Malta. After his release, he and his disciples entered into mainstream politics and actively participated in the democratic process. In the late 1979, the Pakistan–Afghan border became the center of the Deobandi jihadist movement's third wave, which was fueled by the Soviet–Afghan War. Under the patronage of President Zia-ul-Haq, its expansion took place through various madrasas such as Darul Uloom Haqqania and Jamia Uloom-ul-Islamia. Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S) provided political support for it. Trained militants from the Pakistan–Afghan border participated in the Afghan jihad, and later went on to form various organizations, including the Taliban. The most successful example of Deobandi jihadism is the Taliban, who established Islamic rule in Afghanistan. The head of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (S), Sami-ul-Haq, is referred to as the "father of the Taliban."