A Note on the Life of Bahr-ul-Uloom

چند سطور بحرالعلوم کے بارے میں

Shams al-Mufassirīn [Sun of the Qurʾān commentators], Shaykh al-Muḥaddithīn [Master of the ḥadīth scholars], Ustādh al-ʿUlamāʾ [Teacher of the scholars], Baḥr al-ʿUlūm [Ocean of Sciences] Ḥaḍrat Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Qadīr Ṣiddīqī Ḥasrat (may Allah have mercy on him) — Bahrul Uloom Hazrat Sheikh Abdul Qadeer Siddiqui Rahmatullah Alaih — of Hyderabad Deccan was a learned personality who is rightly remembered by the titles Baḥr al-ʿUlūm and Ustādh al-ʿUlamāʾ. He was born on Friday, 27 Rajab 1288 AH (13 October 1871 CE), in a famous scholarly family of Hyderabad Deccan. He passed the Mawlawī Fāḍil and Munshī Fāḍil examinations of the Punjab University with distinction and received gold medals. At first he was appointed at the Dār al-ʿUlūm, which at that time was a famous seminary of Hyderabad Deccan. When Osmania University (Jāmiʿa ʿUthmāniyya) was established, he was appointed Professor and Head of the Department of Theology (Dīniyyāt). By royal decree (farmān) his service was extended continuously over a period of ten years.

He wrote a complete commentary (tafsīr) of the Qurʾān Majīd, which has been published in India and Pakistan under the name "Tafsīr-e-Ṣiddīqī". In 1941, his research paper "The Question of the Non-Abrogation of the Qurʾān" (Masʾala-e ʿAdam-e Naskh-e Qurʾān) was printed on behalf of the Hyderabad Academy, in which he established that no verse of the Noble Qurʾān is abrogated. His work "Al-Dīn", in Arabic, was included in the fiqh syllabus of Jāmiʿa ʿUthmāniyya. In it he established that the foundation of the Ḥanafī school rests on the Qurʾān and Ḥadīth, and not on analogy (qiyās), as people imagine. He translated the work of ʿAllāma Shaykh al-Akbar Muḥyī al-Dīn Ibn ʿArabī, Fuṣūṣ al-Ḥikam — a landmark translation — which was published by the Translation Bureau (Dār al-Tarjama) of Jāmiʿa ʿUthmāniyya and is quite famous. In taṣawwuf (Sufism) he has several works, among which are Ḥikmat-e-Islāmiyya, al-Maʿārif, al-ʿIrfān, al-Tawḥīd (in Persian) and Makātīb-e-ʿIrfān.

He took the pen-name (takhalluṣ) "Ḥasrat" and composed poetry in Arabic, Persian, Urdu and Hindi. His collected poetry has been adorned with print under the name "Kulliyyāt-e-Ḥasrat".

He departed from this transient abode on 17 Shawwāl 1381 AH (24 March 1962 CE), on Saturday, at the time of ʿAṣr.

Muḥammad ʿAbbās ʿAlambardār Ṣiddīqī Director (Muhtamim), Hasrat Academy and Library of Baḥr al-ʿUlūm (may Allah have mercy on him) Ṣiddīq Gulshan, Hyderabad