you may think that i am over reacting. but just think - does the writer always fish out appraisals of biographies of noted personalities? and what is the point of mentioning hayat e alahazrat in this translation in the first place? this book was a work of an earlier author, whose notice is independent of mawlana zafar's book and precedes his by decades. in fact, mawlana zafar would be one year old when the compilation of [abdul]rehman ali began, and was 4 years old when it was first published. [mawlana zafar was born in 1890; book in question was first published in 1894]. the reason he had to drag it, was probably to find an excuse to mention the screed of sulaiman buda'uni, which casually insinuates that hayat-e-alahazrat is not to be trusted. ----- are all the biographies he has mentioned (as cross references) above criticism? and has he mentioned criticisms of biographies, when he mentiones them as additional references? also noteworthy is, the translator generously references from nuz'hatu'l khawatir of abdul-hayy/abu'l hasan nadawi - so he seems to be devbandi sympathiser especially as nomani has written the foreword.
that's ok. the point here is ayyub qadri's including a critique of mawlana zafar from a periodical. what we call in our times as a hack job or a hit piece.
what is important to note here is that sulayman badauni bickers about alahazrat's ancestors and has no bearing on alahazrat's bio per se. my gripe is that the translator of [abdul]rehman ali's work, ayyub qadri simply regurgitated this to malign alahazrat. same filthy attitude of abul hasan nadwi. they couldn't contain the khabasat inside them. and venting their frustration, they had to sully the biographical notice of alahazrat by needless and totally useless footnotes. but unlike abul hasan nadwi and taqi usmani, this dr.ayyub had some ghayrah and he didn't resort to open lies. instead he managed with insinuations.
upon first reading i had thought that the reference of sulayman bada'uni was from a book. when i began to search, i saw dozens of books titled "naqd o nazar". so i went back to the reference and read it once again and noticed that it says: 'al-ilm' karachi, jan-mar 1958. this sounds like a description of a periodical. so i did a second round of search and in a few minutes, and i found my target. and the gist is, the critic simply vomits the filth inside him tries to throw muck on mawlana zafar. irrespective of the "errors" that the critics points out [which we will examine shortly]. the old fool who wrote that critique didn't realise the fallacies - he criticises mawlana zafar for "repeating hearsay" about alahazrat's ancestors based on what? hearsay. and what HE thinks is absolutely true sources such as akhbaru's sanadid and another HINDU historian anand ram! absolute balderdash - even if he ostentatiously cites dates. for example, the crime of mawlana zafar was that he mentioned his own ancestors. sulayman bada'uni like a whining cat, tries to find some fault - assuming that his readers are imbeciles like him. the first "error" he points out is that mawlana zafar mentioned 753AH (1352) as the year of martyrdom of his ancestor. and the "error" of mawlana zafar was that he couldn't produce a reference for the date. the manner in which he writes, gives the assumption that it is a false claim and that is the objective of sulayman, who dresses up his fraud in flimsy 'evidence' he quotes mawlana zafar's footnote and comments: malik zafaruddin sahib did not throw any light on the fact that this war was for the the sake of Allah [lit. to raise the Word of Allah/iylaa e kalimatullah] and it was not in the greed of land [hunger for land] by near or by far. it was necessary for him to mention the warring parties and also the name of a book or reference, so that it would be known that indeed a fight in the year 753 AH /1351 CE took place! this whining is stupid. firstly he whines that mawlana zafar included a mention of his ancestors in alahazrat's biography, as if it was some crime - and then he whines that he didn't include the details of the war in which his ancestor participated. extremely stupid historian this! notice the snide remark: the biographer, along with the mention of the late maulvi sahib (i.e. alahazrat) - has included his own biography. --- if you took away the impression that a fight did not take place in 753 AH, read on - this fellow's own "correction" he cites tarikh e farishtah of maulvi qasim farishtah* - vol.1 about firoz shah tughlaq and his campaign. firoz shah tughlaq (752-791 AH) was the emperor of delhi. a man named haji ilyas murdered ala'uddin the governor (hukm-raan) of bengal and declared hiself as independent ruler by the title sultan shamsuddin bhangra. sultan firuzuddin mounted a campaign against ilyas in 754 AH and out of fear of the emperor he fled and took refuge in kadalah** the emperor's army pursued him and reached there. on 5th rabiy al-awwal 754 the emperor delivered a crushing defeat to ilyas and obtained war spoils and returned with numerous captives of war. firoz shah was one of the few kings in india whose religious exploits are mentioned in detail in the pages of history. ** kadalah/kudalah (according to urdu translation of tarikh firishta, vol.1 p.321) yekdulla according to english translation (see vol.1 p.259 john briggs) and kok-dalah according to sulayman bada'uni. ----- so the ground shattering mistake of mawlana zafar was that he mentioned the year as 753 instead of 754. because, you know it was recorded history and etched in stone. and what is sulayman's evidence to fault mawlana zafar? tarikh e farishta. -- tarikh farishtah is by the persian mughal historian, muhammad qasim farishtah said to be born in 1570 [977 AH] CE in astrabad and travelled to india, and eventually settled in south indian (dakkan). he is said to have passed away between 1611 [1019 AH] and 1623 [1023 AH]. so the author of tarikh e farishtah was not an eye witness to the event. he was born nearly 220 years after the event and arrived to india much later. obviously, he must have relied on other records or 'sources'. regardless, sulayman bada'uni seems to be extremely ignorant of the fact that these are common issues in history. the deaths of famous people are disputed. and if mawlana zafar mentioned 753 AH, it has absolutely NO bearing on history per se and given that firoz shah became emperor in 752AH, it is quite possible that he immediately set out to quell the rebellion of ilyas. --- thus are the other "errors" and events which he dismisses on whims and mainly because of the jealousy and hatred of alahazrat. poor wretch, future historians will look down upon him as a shameless whiner. i will come back to his other "fact-checks." in sha'Allah ==== excerpt from tarikh farishta trans: english trans; https://archive.org/details/history-of-the-rise-of-the-mahomedan-power-in-india-vol.-1
should not be confused with alahazrat's disciple mawlana sayyid ayyub ali rizwi barelwi. i did some more reading and comparison of two editions of the urdu translation by ayyub qadri. ---- upon examining the first version of the translation, it appears that the translator ayyub qadri had hidden hatred of alahazrat and had deobandi inclination. and similar to abul hasan nadawi, he tries to downplay the bio and throw dirt in a subtle and scholarly manner. perhaps, which is why he wrote lengthy footnotes attempting to poison the pond and cast aspersion on maliku'l ulama mawlana zafaruddin bihari's "hayat e alahazrat" by way of ANOTHER source sulaiman bada'uni who castigated him for "including anything that was said." sulaiman bada'uni said in his naqd o nazar apparently. i tried to locate a pdf which i could not as of now. apparently, in the original edition, he had also removed words of appreciation by the original author, as noted by the editors of the second edition. ==== first edition: second edition [corrected]: original farsi (2 ed) ==== ayyub's whining in the first edition - he adds a footnote to sambhali, a student of nanotvi, who ran away on the mas'alah of tafzil al-shaykhayn. p.101 p.102 p.103 if anyone gets hold of "naqd o nazar" by maulvi sulayman bada'uni, please link here. we need to see which historical mistakes are found in hayat e alahazrat. update: upon a re-reading, i noticed that it is an article in the magazine al-ilm from karachi, dated jan-mar 1958. which i dug out. see the next post.
given alahazrat's prowess as a researcher and author, and creativity (as you can see in his exordiums) it is not far-fetched. however, this book is not available. only the name mentioned. so a first hand appraisal is not possible as i have not seen this book. maulana abdul mubin nu'mani in his tasnifat lists it as unpublished, and according to a mention in tazkirah ulama e hind. --- tazkirah ulama e hind was written by [abdur] rahman ali [d.1907/1325 AH] in persian. the book was being written in 1891 / 1307 AH as the author mentions in the notice on mawlana ganjmuradabadi raHimahullah. it was first published in 1894/1312 AH. the author in this biographical notice mentions: "until now, the number of books he has written has reached 75". and he also says: "may ALlah preserve him" as the book was compiled when alahazrat was a young man of 35 [see urdu translation of dr. ayyub qadri, pp.110-115]. the author [abdul] rahman ali - whose real name was abdu'l shakur - was born in 1244 AH and was therefore, older to alahazrat by 28 years. thus, at the time of writing this book, he was 63 years old. so it is not to be viewed as praise by a star-struck follower. in fact, in the closing of his persian work, he has included an autobiography and listed books that he has published and were hitherto unpublished. one of the useful aspects of this work is that he lists the books of scholars mentioned in his work. clearly, he was a well-informed writer. he has a notice on ismayil dihlawi (farsi, p.179) in which he refers to him as shaheed and raHmatullahi alayhi. amusingly, this page is removed from the translated urdu PDF (p.354). he has mentioned allamah sayyid murtada zabidi al-bilgrami and listed his works. see below. ---- so, in this notice, on alahazrat he says: al-rawD al-bahij fi aadab al-takhrij: if a prior book on this topic is/was not found, then he can be considered as the pioneer author in this science. [lit. first to write a book on this subject]. --- in the farsi edition: ===== the notice on alahazrat starts thus: ==== the author's own list of books from his biography, p.260 of the farsi edition. ===== the references he has used in his work, p.257-258 ===== notice on imam murtada zabidi:
Hazrat, on a somewhat related note, if time permits, could you kindly elaborate on the claim that Alahazrat was (arguably) the first scholar to write so extensively on ‘Ilm al-Takhrij in al-Rawd al-Bahij, and is regarded by some as the “founder” of this discipline within the science of Hadith? @abu Hasan
