Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi (1833–1884) was an Indian Islamic scholar, and one of the earliest teachers of Islamic Madrassa in Deoband, famously called Darul Uloom Deoband in India. He was the first principal of Darul Uloom Deoband.[1]
Muhammad Yaqub was born in 1833,[3] coinciding 13 Safar 1249 AH in British India, in the town of Nanauta, part of the Saharanpur District of the modern province of Uttar Pradesh, India.[4] His father, Mamluk Ali, was one of the senior Muslim scholars of India at the time, and the head of Oriental Studies at Madrassa Gaziuddin Khan. Muhammad Yaqub studied most of the Islamic sciences under his father and Shah Abd al-Ghani Mujaddidi.[4] His other teachers include Ahmad Ali Saharanpuri.[citation needed]
In 1852, Muhammad Yaqub was appointed as a teacher in Government College Ajmer. At the recommendation of the College principal, he was offered the post of Deputy collector, which he rejected. He was transferred to Banaras, and later promoted to the post of Deputy Inspector, Saharanpur.[4]
In 1866, Muhammad Yaqub was appointed as the principal of Darul Uloom Deoband.[4] Concerning his appointment in the Deoband seminary, Muhammad Miyan Deobandi writes that, "Seeing the increase in students day to day, it became a concern to get good teachers and thus Maulana Muhammad Yaqub was called to be the principal who was then teaching either in Ajmer or somewhere else."[6]
Yaqub authored Sawaneh Umri Hazrat Maulana Qasim Nanutawi, a biography of Qasim Nanautawi[8] which was translated into Arabic by Arif Jameel Mubarakpuri as Al-Imām Muhammad Qasim An-Nanawtawi Kama Ra’aituhu.[9]
Death and legacy
Muhammad Yaqub Nanautavi died of cholera at age 51 in 1884 and was buried in his hometown, Nanauta.[4]
^Tayyab, Muhammad (1990). The Role of Shaikh-Ul-Hind Maulana Mahmud-Ul-Hasan in the Indian Freedom Movement (MPhil). Aligarh Muslim University. p. 20.{{cite thesis}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
^Professor Nur al-Hasan Sherkoti. "Hadhrat Mawlana Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi". In Deobandi, Nawaz (ed.). Sawaneh Ulama-e-Deoband (in Urdu) (January 2000 ed.). Deoband: Nawaz Publications. pp. 90–214.
^ abcAsir Adrawi. Tazkirah Mashāhīr-e-Hind: Karwān-e-Rafta (in Urdu) (2 April 2016 ed.). Deoband: Darul Muallifeen. p. 269.
