Munshi Azimuddin Hanafi rose to prominence as he engaged in literary and physical debates with Faraizi scholars, particular regarding Friday prayers. He performed the Hajj pilgrimage twice, travelling to Mecca by foot on both occasions. Azimuddin also supported the idea that British India was not a territory of war.[4]
He wrote most of his books in Bengali in the puthi format and covered a variety of topics such as Islamic theology, history and women's rights.[5] A small number of his works were written in Arabic and Urdu, and he was also proficient in Persian. Azimuddin has a large body of work titled Asrār as-Ṣalāh. His most notable work in Urdu was Resāla-e-Azīmuddīn Hanafī (1895) which challenged critics of the Hanafi school of thought.[6] This work was published from the Ahmadi Press in Calcutta and began with a qasida written in Urdu.[7] Azimuddin Hanafi translated the Futūḥ al-Shām by Al-Waqidi into Bengali for the first time. Some of his other Bengali works include:[1]
Munshi Azimuddin Hanafi died in Bengal in 1922. His works are preserved at the library of the India Office in London.[1] In 2005, Muhammad Abdur Rashid Bhuiyan published a research paper on Azimuddin's life titled Munshi Azimuddin Nama.[9][10]
^Muhammad Mojlum Khan (21 October 2013). "Mawlana Karamat Ali Jaunpuri". The Muslim Heritage of Bengal: The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of Great Muslim Scholars, Writers and Reformers of Bangladesh and West Bengal. Kube Publishing. p. 100.
