Momtazuddin Ahmad

Mawlana Momtazuddin Ahmad (Bengali: মমতাজুদ্দীন আহমদ; 1889–1974) was a Bengali Islamic scholar, author and teacher. He is the father of former Prime Minister Moudud Ahmed.

Momtazuddin Ahmad was born in 1889 to a Bengali Muslim family of Bhuiyans in the village of Manikpur in Noakhali District, Bengal Presidency. His father, Muhammad Jalees Bhuiyan, was a sheikh.^[2]

After finishing primary school, Ahmad moved to Calcutta and became a student at its Alia Madrasa in 1907. He passed from Jamaat-i-Suwam in 1910 and Jamaat-i-Ula in 1913. In 1916, he graduated in Hadith studies from the madrasa and awarded Fakhr al-Muhadditheen (Glory of the Hadith scholars). His Hadith teachers were Ishaq Burdwani and Nazir Hasan Deobandi. His other teachers included Lutfur Rahman Burdwani, Abdul Haq Haqqani and Fazl-e-Haq Rampuri. Ahmad passed his matriculation from the University of Calcutta Board in 1918.^[3]

Ahmad remained in Calcutta after completing his education, teaching Hadith studies at the Calcutta Alia Madrasa from 1919. He also briefly served as a lecturer of Arabic at the Presidency College in 1921.^[4] He relocated to the Government Madrasah-e-Alia, Dacca in 1953, six years after the Partition of Bengal. Among his notable students are Amimul Ehsan Barkati.^[1]

Ahmad married Begum Ambia Khatun. His fourth son, Moudud Ahmed, served as the Prime Minister of Bangladesh from 1988 to 1989.^[5]

Ahmad primarily wrote in Arabic, Bengali and Urdu. Among his published works are:

• Ḥall al-ʿUqdah fī Sharḥ Sabʿ Muʿallaqah^[6]
• Sahl al-Maʿālī fī Sharḥ Maqāmāt Badīʿ az-Zāmān al-Hamadhānī
• Niʿmah al-Munʿim fī Sharḥ Muqaddimah Sahih Muslim
• Al-Kawkab ad-Durrī fī Sharḥ Muqaddimah Mishkat al-Masabih
• Kashf al-Maʿānī fī Sharḥ Maqāmāt al-Ḥarīrī
• Nabī Parichay
• Qurān Parichiti
• Paribāgher Shāh Sāheber Jībanī

Ahmad died in 1974.^[4]