Moulana Muhammad Abdur Rahim
Childhood and education
Moulana Muhammad Abdur Rahim was born in the month of falgun of the Bengali year 1325 or on the 2nd of March in 1918 according to the English calendar. His birthplace was the village of shialkathi in the district of Pirojepur in Bangladesh. He was born in to an eminent family that was reputed to have descended from Sheikh Baijeed, a renowned dar
besh from Iran. His father, the late Haji Khabiruddin was a devout man whose life was spent in the pursuit of knowledge and the means of bettering the lot of his fellow men. His mother Aklimunnessa was no less pious than his father and was a wonderful woman who loved her family dearly. Abdur Rahim was the fourth among the twelve children that his parents were blessed with. His eldest brother, A.T.M Abdul Wahid was a graduate from, and a prominent literary figure in the Alia Madrasa of Calcutta. A Karim and M.A Sattar, also his brothers, are both well-known writers.Moulana Abdur Rahim
Moulana Abdur Rahimís great strength of character manifested itself from a very early age. His favorite and only sport was swimming against the swift current that flowed in the river beside his home. He started his education in the village mosque that was right there in his fatherís home. He completed the first four years of his education there and in 1934, he got admitted into the Sharshina Aliya Madrasa. Here he studied for about five years and in 1938, he graduated with merit from this institution. He next got admitted into Alia Madrasa of Calcutta from where he passed his ‘Fazil’ and ‘Kamil’ exams in 1940 and 1942, respectively. Maulana Abdur Rahim got married in the year 1941 with the youngest daughter of the deceased ‘Pir’ Muzaffar Uddin Talukdar— Khairunnesa. Among the ten children they had, there were eight sons and two daughters. The incetion of writing
From a very tender age, the various evils of the existing society gave him pain and created a rebellious attitude in him. In a letter to his elder brother, he clearly expressed his growing sense of rebelliousness against the whole social system. Encouraged and inspired by his elder brother, he started writing at a very early age and the first of his writings was published in a school magazine when he was just twelve. He wrote in various minor magazines. He wrote also in the daily paper ‘Krishok’ of Abdul Mansur Ahmed, the daily ‘Azad’ by Moulana Akram Kha, etc. There was a huge library in the Alia Madrassa in Calcutta. He spent hours there everyday, reading and trying to find the fundamental truths that govern the lives of human beings. It was there that he got intimately acquainted with the minds and thoughts of Imam Ibne Taimiah, the Great poet Galib, Shah Waliullah Dehlvi, Altaaf Hussain Hali, and various other great scholars.Moulana Abdur Rahim
Two great men and their contributions to the Islamic revolutions in the subcontinent cast particularly strong impression on his mind. He was also very strongly drawn towards the ideas of the great poet Allama Iqbal because of his revolutionary ideas. First Expressions of Rebelliousness
After finishing his studies, Moulana Abdur Rahim was engaged by Alia Madrasa in research work. Apart from spending his time in studying the English language as well as its literature and studying the modern sciences, he also translated into Bengali the very famous Arabic book ‘Tablis Iblis’ by Imam Ibnul Jaozir. Also, he soon became a popular figure among the new generation of writers as a result of the various articles he got published in the different magazines that were in circulation at that time in Calcutta. His articles were mostly concerned with the fundamental aspects of Islam. Joining the Islamic Revolution
It was during the period of his research at Aliya Madrasa that he was facing a fierce struggle in his soul. For him the choice was to continue living a wonderfully peaceful life or engaging in the searching of a way to find a way for his countrymen to be delivered from ignorance. The revolution in Pakistan was at that time at its pinnacle and added to his inner restlessness. At this time, he came across some Urdu books written by the founder of Jamait-e- Islami—Moulana Sayed Abul Ala Mowdudi. He found parallels in the way he himself thought and in what Mowdudi had written in his book “Islami Hukumat Kis Tarah Kaem Hota Hai”. He contacted the man through a letter and soon joined Jamait-e- Islami Hind. Apart from Bengal and Assam, almost everyone in the rest of Pakistan knew about and supported this group because Mowdudi’s books were all written in Urdu. Moulana Abdur Rahim was the first man who took the initiative to acquaint the group with the people of Bengal and Assam who were not even aware of the groupís very existence. In 1946, he participated in the all-Indian conference in Alahabad and met the most important members of Jamat. During this time, Moulana Abdur Rahim became eager to express his inner feelings about something he had strong feeling about through his writings. And for the first time, in 1946, he published a long essay in the magazine Mohammadi, which was edited by the poet Farrukh Ahmed. The subject of his essay was the revolution for reform by Sheikh Mohammad Bin Abdul Wahab. In the same year, he published another article in which he analytically discussed Islami Towheed. The name of his article was ‘Oikko And Goti’. Some of the other articles he published in that magazine were on the structure of Islamic economy, the philosophy of Iqbal’s poetry, etc. He was obviously influenced by Iqbal’s philosophy for he wrote another article— ‘Iqbaler Rajnoitic Chintadhara’ (The Political thought of Iqbal) that very year. After it was published in 1950-51 in Mohammadi, the library dedicated to IQbal in Karachi published it again in 1960 under Iqbal Academy.Moulana Abdur Rahim
The beginning of his life as a revolutionary
It was about the middle of this very year that he came back to his birthplace in Pirojepur. He tried to get involved with some small businesses, and then tried teaching for a while. But since he was destined for a different kind of life, he did not do very well in the afore-mentioned professions. His writings by this time, found their way into numerous daily, weekly and monthly papers and he became increasingly involved in certain radical activities. In 1947 in mid-August, the state of Pakistan was created from the areas that had a large Muslim majority. By exploiting the emotions of the masses, the rulers of this new state tried to run the country as an Islamic state. Ironically enough, these people had not the least idea of what is meant by an Islamic state. Educated people had no Bengali books about Islam that could inform them about it. Being fully aware of the ignorance of his countrymen Abdur Rahim began to give lectures on Islam in the capital of East Pakistan-Dhaka. Besides, he also translated some of Mowdudi’s Urdu books and started working on some of his own books dealing with the fundamental aspects of Islam. The Setting of Jamat’s Foundation in Daka
In order to provide him with support in the arduous task of establishing Jamat’s foundation in Dhaka two men– Moulana Rafi Ahmed Indori and Chowdhuri Ali Ahmed Khan joined forces with him. But the two men faced certain serious obstacles that disabled them from carrying out their duties: firstly, the differences in language and secondly, the adversities of the environment. So most of the pressure fell on Moulana Abdur Rahim alone and he carried out his various duties as very few men could with extraordinary efficiency. In 1948 as a result of the urge he felt of the importance of unifying the nation’s scholars by means of the movement that he had become a part of, he communicated with those in the highest echeleons— the late Moulana Atahar Ali, Moulana Shamsul Haq Faridpuri, Mowlana Nur Muhammad Azmi and thus made his movement even stronger. He also started editing a weekly magazine in Barisal at that time–Tanzim, in which he presented his revolutionary ideas about Islam. His stay in Barisal was cut short by the pressing needs of his organization and he was forced to go to Dhaka where he started working as the general secretary of Jamat for East Pakistan.Moulana Muhammad Abdur Rahim
The First Basic Fundamental Book and Its Publication:
From then onwards, He began to write in a very organized manner. His first book ‘Kalema Tayyeba’ was published. This was an extremely important publication because though Bangladeshis knew about ‘Kalema Tayyeba’ and all, they had very little clue as to its true significance. They used to simply utter it as a meaningless chant. The complete revolution in oneís thought process that this kalema is meant to bring obout was almost never seen amongst Muslims and uttering it made little difference to how they lived. He had proved with this book of his that the kalema, as the Quran and Hadith points out, means that a Muslim has completely and irrevocably declared the supremacy of Allah in every single aspect of life and has also accepted the leadership of the Prophet [SM]. That he has declared it impossible to be governed by anything other than the laws of Allah and the words of his prophet. Understandably, this book created a lot of furor aftere its publication. During the period 1950-52, he traveled extensively throughout the then west Pakistan for purposes of his work. He gathered an immense amount of experience from his tours, which included the attendance of a conference of Jamat in Karachi, an extensive amount of time in the company of Moulana Mowdudi in Lahore, the head office of Jamat, and a tour of the frontier provinces, etc. In later years, these experiences about the momentum of a revolution helped him immensely in his work in his homeland. Read more here -http://marrf.com/moulana-muhammad-abdur-rahim-rh/
