Maulana Saleemullah Khan (RA)

عَنْ عَبْدِ اللَّهِ بْنِ عَمْرِو بْنِ الْعَاصِ قَالَ قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ إِنَّ اللَّهَ لَا يَقْبِضُ الْعِلْمَ انْتِزَاعًا يَنْتَزِعُهُ مِنْ الْعِبَادِ وَلَكِنْ يَقْبِضُ الْعِلْمَ بِقَبْضِ الْعُلَمَاءِ حَتَّى إِذَا لَمْ يُبْقِ عَالِمًا اتَّخَذَ النَّاسُ رُءُوسًا جُهَّالًا فَسُئِلُوا فَأَفْتَوْا بِغَيْرِ عِلْمٍ فَضَلُّوا وَأَضَلُّوا

Sayyid­i­na Abdul­lah ibn Amr (RA) report­ed: The Mes­sen­ger of Allah (Sal­lal­la­ho Alai­he Was­sal­lam) said, “Ver­i­ly, Allah does not take away knowl­edge by snatch­ing it from the peo­ple but rather he takes away knowl­edge with the death of the schol­ars until he leaves no schol­ar behind and the peo­ple turn to the igno­rant as their lead­ers. They are asked to give reli­gious judg­ments with­out knowl­edge, thus they are led astray and lead oth­ers astray.” [Bukhari]

Maulana Saleemullah Khan (RA):

Founder of the Jamia Farooqia (Karachi), Hadhrat Sheikhul Hadeeth, Maulana Saleer­nul­lah Khan (RA) son of Abdul Aleem Khan was born in Dis­trict Muzaf­far­na­gar, India. He belonged to Hasan­pur, Lohari of Doa­ba, U.P. which is famous with ref­er­ence to many learned schol­ars and respect­ed spir­i­tu­al lead­ers. The spir­i­tu­al teacher (Sheikh) of Hadhrat Haji Imdadul­lah Moha­jir Mak­ki (RA), Sheikh Mian­ji Noor Mohammed (RA) passed his whole life in the said village.

Maulana Sal­imul­lah Khan (RA), since his child­hood sought edu­ca­tion in dif­fer­ent impor­tant reli­gious insti­tu­tions. At last in 1942, he reached Darul Uloom Deoband to com­plete the scholas­tic career. There, in Deoband, he received edu­ca­tion of Quraan, Hadeeth and oth­er relat­ed sci­ences through learned schol­ars of the time which includes, Hadhrat Syed Hus­sain Ahmad Madani (RA), Hadhrat Eza­az Ali (RA), Hadhrat Mohammed Idress Kandhlavi (RA) and oth­er promi­nent reli­gious per­son­al­i­ties. Sheikhul Hadeeth remained busy in gain­ing knowl­edge and seek­ing edu­ca­tion till 1947. In the same year, he got the degree for com­ple­tion of Islam­ic studies.

Then he was giv­en the respon­si­bil­i­ties teach­ing and some admin­is­tra­tive mat­ters in Madrasah Mif­tahul Uloom, Jalal­abad, India, sit­u­at­ed in his own local­i­ty, under the super­vi­sion of his teacher Hadhrat Maulana Masi­hul­lah Khan (RA). After con­tin­u­ous efforts of 8 years, the insti­tu­tion became so reput­ed that Darul Uloom Deoband and oth­er big insti­tu­tions start­ed wel­com­ing the stu­dents of the institution.

Mufti Mah­mood Hasan Gan­go­hi (RA) writes about the inci­dent of Maulana Sal­imul­lah Khan (RA)‘s mem­o­riza­tion of the Qur’aan:

There is a friend of mine — Maulana Saleemul­lah Khan Sahib (RA). He lived in Jalal­abad for a long peri­od and was a very close acquain­tance of Hadhrat Maulana Masi­hul­lah Khan (RA). He then moved to Pak­istan where he is a prin­ci­pal of a Madrasah in Karachi which also pub­lish­es a mag­a­zine. He mem­o­rised the Qur’an in this man­ner that dai­ly in the morn­ing he used to learn one Juz and at night he used to recite it to some­one. In this way with­in twen­ty-nine days he mem­o­rised the entire Qur’an. He had known one Juz pri­or to that.

After work­ing for eight years in this insti­tu­tion, Hadhrat Sheikhul Hadeeth (RA) came to Pak­istan for teach­ing in Darul Uloom Tan­do Allah­yar, Sindh, found­ed by Hadhrat Maulana Shab­bir Ahmed Usmani (RA). He taught there for 3 years and then came to Darul Uloom Karachi, a well known reli­gious insti­tu­tion of Pak­istan. In Darul Uloom Karachi he taught, Quraan, Hadeeth, Fiqh, His­to­ry, Math­e­mat­ics, Phi­los­o­phy and Ara­bic lit­er­a­ture. In the mean­time, he had been teach­ing in Jamiat­ul Uloomil Islamia, New Town, Karachi, as vis­it­ing fac­ul­ty for a year  on intense and repeat­ed requests of Hadhrat Maulana Mohammed Yousuf Bin­nori (RA).

Almighty Allah has gift­ed him with a strong and nat­ur­al reli­gious enthu­si­asm, that is why he was not sat­is­fied with his even suc­cess­ful ser­vices and always thought for the neces­si­ty of such a reli­gious insti­tu­tion which can ful­fill the needs and demands of today as well.

There­fore, in 1967, he laid the foun­da­tion of Jamia Farooqia (Karachi). His sin­cere efforts have been so much blessed by Almighty Allah that since its foun­da­tion till now, Jamia Farooqia (Karachi) has advanced a long way in Islam­ic Edu­ca­tion and relat­ed fields which seems almost unbelievable.

Today Jamia Farooqia (Karachi) is famous and known inside and out­side Pak­istan as a inter­na­tion­al uni­ver­si­ty of Islam­ic stud­ies. This all is only due to sin­cere efforts of Hadhrat Sheikhul Hadeeth (RA) and by the grace of Almighty Allah.

Shaykhul-Islam (Mufti) Taqi Usmani (DB) is his student.

Besides, real­iz­ing the ser­vices of Hazrat Sheikhul Hadith in the field of Islam­ic edu­ca­tion, he was elect­ed for the posi­tion of Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary of Board of Reli­gious Edu­ca­tion­al Insti­tu­tions in Pak­istan (Wifaqul Madarisal Ara­bia, Pak­istan) by all the schol­ars of Pak­istan. After some­times, while appre­ci­at­ing his unmatched ser­vices, he was elect­ed as Pres­i­dent of Board. He held the same posi­tion in the Board until he passed away on Sun­day, the 15th of Jan­u­ary 2017.

Wifaqul Madarisal Ara­bia, Pak­istan, is a large and influ­en­tial organ­i­sa­tion. The num­ber of its mem­ber­ship reach­es to more than sev­en thou­sand reli­gious insti­tu­tions in Pak­istan. In begin­ning as Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al, he had done the ser­vices for rais­ing the impor­tance of the Board, advance­ment and organ­i­sa­tion of reli­gious insti­tu­tions and increas­ing the stan­dard of edu­ca­tion which is the bright­est chap­ter of the his­to­ry of Board.