Habibur Rahman Usmani

Habibur Rahman Usmani (1860–1929), also written as Habibur Rahman Deobandi and Maulāna Habib al-Rahmān, was an Indian Islamic scholar, Arabic writer and poet, and an Islamic jurist. He served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor, then Vice-Chancellor for the VC Office of Darul Uloom Deoband, for nearly twenty-three years. He succeeded Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad as Grand Mufti of Hyderabad State for about one year. His students included Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Manazir Ahsan Gilani, Muhammad Shafi Deobandi, Habib al-Rahman al-A'zami, Muhammad Idris Kandhlawi, Atiqur Rahman Usmani, Qari Muhammad Tayyib, Badre Alam Merathi, Hifzur Rahman Seoharwi, Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi, Manzoor Nomani, and Yusuf Banuri.

Habibur Rahman Usmani was born in Deoband in 1277 AH (1860/1861 AD).^[1][2][3] His father was Fazlur Rahman Usmani, a co-founder of Darul Uloom Deoband, and his brothers included Azizur Rahman Usmani and Shabbir Ahmad Usmani.^[4]

He studied at Darul Uloom Deoband from the beginning and graduated from there in 1300 AH (1383 AD).^[5] His teachers included Yaqub Nanautawi,^[6] Mahmud Deobandi, Syed Ahmad Dehlavi,^[7] and Mahmud Hasan Deobandi.^[8] His classmates included Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad.^[9]

He was an authorised disciple of Rashid Ahmad Gangohi in Sufism.^[10]

After graduation, he was appointed as a teacher at Darul Uloom Deoband,^[5][2] and later, he was promoted to Deputy Vice Chancellor in 1907 AD (1325 AH) and remained in this position until 1925 AD (1343 AH).^[11][12][13]

In late Jumada al-Ula 1344 AH (early December 1925 AD), he succeeded Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad as Grand Mufti of Hyderabad State and returned to Deoband in 12 Rabiul al-Awwal 1345 AH (latter September 1926) and worked as Vice Chancellor as the assistant of Hafiz Muhammad Ahmad, the Head-VC of the time.^{[14][15][16][17]} In late 1928 AD (1347 AH), he was appointed as prominent Vice Chancellor of Darul Uloom Deoband and remained in this position until his demise in December 1929.^[14][18]

His students included Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Manazir Ahsan Gilani, Muhammad Shafi Deobandi, Habib al-Rahman al-A'zami, Muhammad Idris Kandhlawi, Atiqur Rahman Usmani, Qari Muhammad Tayyib, Badre Alam Merathi, Hifzur Rahman Seoharwi, Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi, Manzoor Nomani, Yusuf Banuri, and Abdul Hafeez Balyawi.^[19][10]

In April 1910 (Rabi al-Awwal 1328 AH), he issued Darul Uloom Deoband's first magazine, Monthly Al-Qasim, and served as its editor until its publication was discontinued in March 1920. Then, in Muharram 1344 AH (July 1925 AH), when it was reissued, he became its editor again, and after four years, in 1347 AH (1928), its publication was discontinued permanently. Similarly, from Rajab 1332 AH (May 1914) to Jumada al-Ukhra 1339 AH (March 1920), he edited Monthly Al-Rashid, another Darul Uloom magazine, from beginning until it was stopped.^[20][21][22]

Qari Muhammad Tayyib states that Anwar Shah Kashmiri used to say that if I am influenced by someone's knowledge, then he is Maulana Habibur Rahman.^[23][24]

He was an active member of the Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind and presided over its fourth conference held in Gaya, Bihar, between December 24 and 26, 1922 AD (Jumada al-Ula 5 and 7, 1341 AH), during which he delivered the presidential sermon.^{[25][26][2][27]}

He actively participated in the Khilafat movement^{[28][29][30][31]} and presided over several conferences held in Meerut and Muzaffarnagar, UP, between March and April of 1920.^[32]

Usmani was specialised in Arabic and Urdu literature and history. He wrote a qasida entitled Lāmiyat al-Mu'jizāt, which describes one hundred miracles of the Islamic prophet Muhammad in about three hundred verses and has also been translated into Urdu by Izaz Ali Amrohi.^[33][34] He wrote another qasida of two hundred and eighty-five verses titled Bāmiyat-ul-Mu'jizāt, which explores Prophet Muhammad's one hundred miracles.^[8]

He penned several poems in honor of Hyderabad State's last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan. He did not perform these poems for money gain but rather to praise Nizam for his concern and interest in religious affairs and Islamic religious institutions, particularly for the reason^[35] for which Nizam was granted to donate five hundred rupees per month to Darul Uloom Deoband.^[35][36]

His works include:^{[37][38][39][8][35][40]}

• Mu'īn al-Labīb Fī Jam'-i-Qasāid al-Habīb (his dīwān, compiled by Izāz Alī Amrohi.)
• Ishā'at-e-Islām: Dunya Mein Islām Kiyun Kar Phala? (in Urdu; transl. Spread of Islam: How did Islam spread across the world?)
• Ta'līmāt-e-Islām (in Urdu; transl. The teachings of Islam)
• Hāshiyah Maqāmāt-e-Harīrī (his Urdu annotations on Al-Hariri's Maqamat al-Hariri)
• Hashiyah Tafsīr al-Jalālayn (his annotations on Al-Mahalli's Tafsir al-Jalalayn)
• Rahmatul Lil-Ālamīn or Sīrat-e-Sayyid al-Murasalīn (an incomplete prophetic biography of Islamic prophet Muhammad)

Usmani died 4 Rajab 1348 AH (6 December 1929 AD) in Deoband and buried in Qasmi cemetery.^[41][34][42] Sulaiman Nadvi, in an issue of Ma'arif magazine in Azamgarh, expressed his grief over his death and described his death as the biggest academic and educational accident of that month.^[43][44]

• Saʻīd, Aḥmad (1997). Muslim India, 1857-1947: A Biographical Dictionary. Institute of Pakistan Historical Research. p. 331.
• Aziz, Hasan (2022). বিস্মৃত মনীষা: দারুল উলুম দেওবন্দের বিস্মৃত মনীষীদের জীবনালেখ্য [Forgotten People: Biographies of the forgotten thinkers of Darul Uloom Deoband] (in Bengali). Dhaka: Punoray Prokashon. pp. 51–63.