Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi

Saeed Akbarabadi was born in the colonial Indian city of Agra in 1908.[1][2] He studied his primary classes at home, then he studied in Jamia Qasmia Madrasa Shahi, and later graduated from the Darul Uloom Deoband. There he studied under Anwar Shah Kashmiri, Shabbir Ahmad Usmani and Ibrahim Balyawi.[2] He then undertook specialist courses at Oriental College, Lahore. During the period, Akbarabadi was appointed as a teacher of oriental languages in Madrasa-e-Aaliya, Fatehpuri. He gained a Master of Arts degree in Arabic from St. Stephen's College, Delhi.[1]

After completing studies at Oriental College, Lahore, Akbarabadi taught at Jamia Islamia Talimuddin, Dabhel. He then taught oriental languages in Madrassa-e-Aalia, Fatehpuri. After completing his M.A from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, he became a lecturer in the same college. In the meantime Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq (Former President of Pakistan) became his student.[2] In 1938, Akbarabadi established Nadwatul Musannifeen along with Atiqur Rahman Usmani, Hamid al-Ansari Ghazi and Hifzur Rahman Seoharwi.[3] In 1949, he became Principal of the Madrassa-e-Aliya, Calcutta.

In 1958, Akbarabadi became the Dean of the Faculty of Theology in the Aligarh Muslim University. He transformed a weak faculty and introduced graduate teaching and a doctoral programme.[1] He supervised his (and the Faculty’s) first doctoral thesis, on Anwar Shah Kashmiri, which was later published by Aligarh Muslim University in 1974.[2]

During 1962 and 1963, Akbarabadi was a Visiting Professor in the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Canada. After his retirement from AMU in 1972, he joined an Islamic institute of Hamdard in Tughlaqabad for four years.

After that, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Calicut and then at Aligarh Muslim University. Darul Uloom Deoband then made him Director of its new research department, Shaikhul Hind Academy, a post he held from 25 December 1982 until his death on 24 May 1985.[2]

Akbarabadi wrote books including:[4]

• Al-riq fi al-Islam
• Fehm-e-Quran
• Ghulaman-e-Islam
• Hindustan ki shar'i haisiyat
• Hind Pak̄istān kī taḥrīk-i āzādī aur ʻulamāʼe ḥaqq kā siyāsī muʼaqqaf
• K̲h̲ut̤bāt-i Iqbāl par ek naẓar
• Musalmano Ka Urooj-o-Zawal
• Siddiq-e-Akbar
• Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi aur unke Naaqid
• Uthman Zinnurayn
• Wahi Ilahi

Studies of Akbarabadi include:[2]

• Maulana Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi: Ahwaal-Aasaar by Dr Masood Alam Qasmi
• Maulana Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi: Hayat-o-Khidmat by Dr Qaiser Habeeb Hashmi
• Maulana Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi aur unki Adbi Khidmat by Miss Jahan Ara (Thesis submitted in Punjab University, Lahore).

• Syed Mehboob Rizwi
• Muhammad Taqi Amini