Mufti Saheb is one of the few remnants left today of the Deobandi Akabir. Appreciate him while he is with us. brother Mathbooh for the useful biography: Originally Posted by Mathbooh Moulana is a 72 year old,South African(3rd generation iirc) aalim who is a senior khalifah of Ml.Maseehullah Khan Sherwani(r.a.).Moulana gained his initial prominance due to Ml.Maseehullah(r.a.) fondness of him. Moulana was one of the most hard working students in the madressah, completed his studies and was given Ijazah in a very short period of time. Moulana has been involved in various branches of deen. Moulana is a sheikh of tasawwuf,was/is involved in the ta'leem of children,maktab and other levels iirc, also through his awake magazine and al-haq,al-majlis and other publications. Moulana has compiled plenty of books on different speres of deen, including fatawa, tasawwuf, ibadat, responses to baatil, fiqh, aqeedah and many more. Moulana was also involved in jihad, running jihad camps in the mountains of the Eastern Cape province of South Africa,and he had links to several of the afghan mujahideen. I am not sure if he spent time in afghanistan just as an observer or if he was active in the actual jihad against the soviets. Moulana is a vocifirous votary of the caucus mujahideen. Moulana also runs a humanitarian organisation known as SOSH/servants of suffering humanity. Moulana also runs an extensive project which is known as the maktab project. It is run in many countries, primarily in bangladesh and impoverished muslim communities that have little deen and where christian missioneries are active. In 1999, there were 600 maktab madrasahs run by moulana. I don't know about the present situation. It was during one of moulanas visits to the madrasahs in bangladesh that Moulana was arrested and imprisoned in Bangladesh by the CID of Bangladesh and the CIA. Moulana was improsened for 6 months without being formally charged and he was stuck in Bangladesh for another 6 months as his passport was confiscated. During Moulanas detention, he was continously interrogated for 29 days by CID,during which sleep depravation e.t.c. were employed. He was thereafter interrogated by the CIA.During the CIA interrogations he was taken to an elite suburb of Dakha. Amongst the things he was accused of were: Financing al-qaida and Usama Bin Laden; Owning diamond mines with Usama; funding jihad throughn his 'diamond mines'; conspiring to overthrow the bangali government, assasinating intellectuals, secularists, senior millitary officials e.t.c.; Being part of Usama's command structure; establishing 421 jihad training units in Bangladesh e.t.c..During Ml. improsenment, he had the full support of the S.A. govt. and the embassy in Delhi. Embassy officials were sent to report on his well-being and to liase with his legal team and inspect his madrasahs. Moulana gained a lot of stick during the late 90's from other deobandis. Moulana was involved in a controversy.He was part of a fact finding mission(of his organisation) to afghanistan. His report on the taliban was critical.He was critical of their 'wastage of food', misappropriation of funds, tolerance of bid'ah, acceptance of bay'ah of the shiahs, allowing televisions to be transported through afghanistan,'forsaking the salafi mujahideen on the pretext of them being salafi' e.t.c. However, in 2000/2001 iirc, when the taliban 'corrected' some of these issues he praised them. Moulana has travel restrictions placed on him. Moulana is very strict in his fatawa and very harsh in his language. It is not appropriate for laymen to desrespect ulama/certain ulama on the basis of his writings. May Allah unite the ulama on haq. was salam
Answer In the name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful Assalaamu `alaykum waRahmatullahi Wabarakatoh The editor of the Majlis, Hazrath Moulana Ahmad Sadeck Desai Saheb Madda Zilluhu is an Aalim of a very high calibre. He has a deep understanding of Shariah. This is clearly gauged from his innumerable publications. Hazrath Moulana is the Khalifa of Hazrath Maseehullah Khan Saheb rahmatullah alayh. Hazrath has been selflessly dedicated to Amal bil Maroof and Nahi Anil Munkar for the past few decades. Hazrath is also engaged in various other activities. It is surprising how much one person can do. Allah has granted Hazrath great courage and strength. He is a person of high level of taqwa and mujahadah. He does not go after position and fame. If that was the case, Hazrath would not have selflessly and openly condemned many wrongs and evils for the fear of becoming unpopular. Many people throughout the world continue to benefit from Hazrath Moulana’s publications. Television is haram and we concur with Hazrath’s view on that. It is possible that the different radio stations err in some issues. If Hazrath points that out, it should be accepted and corrected. It is incorrect to brand Hazrath of being over extreme when he is fulfilling his obligation on Nahi Anil Munkar. Those that claim that Hazrath is extreme, what is their measure to claim that? If people violate the laws of Shariah and Hazrath rightfully condemns that, how can that be extremism? What do such people expect Hazrath to do? Keep quiet? What will that be then? Complacence, which is a sin. It should also be pointed out that differences of opinions among academics is regarded as academic honesty. This is common even among academics in secular qualifications. The different views among the Ulama, based on academics is a mercy upon the ummah and should be tolerated. If other Ulama have differing views from Hazrath’s views and both are based on academic substantiations, then it will be incorrect to brand any one view as being an extreme view. While we concur with Hazrath on the issue of television and open wrongs of television and radio stations, we may differ with him on other issues. However, we will respect his view and tolerate it as Hazrath’s views are generally substantiated by Shariah. If anyone claims to have an academically different opinion and he does not stand up to the academic challenges made to him, that is academic dishonesty and such an opinion cannot be tolerated as that is regarded as academic dishonesty. Another issue is the tone and manner of condemning a vice. This is based of hikmah and wisdom. At times, the Quran condemns certain wrongs in certain ways, medium to harsh. This is based on what is best in the interest of that time and matter. An Aalim of Deen is imbued with hikmah. He exercises that hikmah and whatever he honestly feels between him and Allah is the most efficient tone in condemning a wrong, he does that. The different ways of Ulama condemning wrongs, some with softness and others harshly etc. should be viewed in this light. Concentrate on the actual issue pointed out rather than focus on the style and tone. When the laws of Shairah are violated and people, especially Ulama, keep quiet, that incurs the wrath of Allah. The silence of Ulama will lead to distortion of Shariah and Deen. Allah condemned the Ulama of theYahood and Nasaara for keeping quiet against open violation of the Shariah. Rasulullah (صلى الله عليه وسلم) said, “This knowledge of Deen will be carried by just people from pious predecessors. They will refute distortions of extremists, refute baseless claims and wrong interpretations of ignorant people”. And Allah knows best Wassalam Mufti Ebrahim Desai
Its also very important to know the person whose Fatwa you are reading so here is a first hand report from a Scholar about our noble and respected Shaykh (Mufti) A.S Desai or Majlis(South Africa: I met Hazrat Maulana AS a couple of weeks back. He is absolutely a Wali of this time. Where would you find a person in this age with plain clothings, I counted 4 or 5 patches on his clothing. his hair was extremely oiled as though he just took a shower. He reminded me of the ahadeeth about Nabi salallahu alayhi wasallam. He was more like bubbly, would talk in hyperness. Extremely witty. Walked with firmly grounding his foot. When he met Mufti XXX's son the first thing he did was masnoon dua. In the entire time I spent in his company, I grew more and more closer to him. I felt being drawn to him like a magnet. His talk was none of the vocabulary of his writing, but simple English. At time he would explain something trivial but somehow the way he would speak would convince us. He reminded me of no one but a Wali of Allah. Extremely Mutabi' sunnah, and pleasant to be in company of. Firm on his stance. P.S: Now, his Fatwaas and views on Tassawuff make sense as he is close follower of Sunnah and doesn't like any deviation from it.
ASSALAMU ALAIKUM 30 Muharram 1430 (26-01-2009) Abdus Sattaar Syed Cape Town Respected Brother, Your e-mail dated 24-01-2009 refers. Islaah of the Nafs is of paramount importance. In all spheres of life, whether in business, in family affairs, or Deeni matters, never be neglectful of this aspect. It is essential to always examine the intention and the motive. Even when embarking on a Deeni project, refelect, do some soul searching and endeavour to fathom yourself to detect whether the niyyat is sincere or contaminated with some nafsaani motive. When a person always adopts the practice of reflection before action, then after some time Allah Ta'ala bestows to him the capacity of swift detection of any thief which may be lurking in his heart. When we criticize those whom we believe are on baatil, we should do so with trepidation, recite Istighfaar and think deeply before the criticism to ascertain whether the criticism is indeed motivated by Ikhlaas and by a concern for the Haqq. It is best and safest for laymen to strictly adhere to the issue and not deflect therefrom. For example, when you criticize Sanha, only point out to them their flaws, their errors and the harm they are causing with their halaalization projects. Do not degenerate to a personal level where you will brand them with labels and epithets in the way in which we (Mujlisul Ulama) do. We have our own Deeni agenda and we understand what we are doing. It is not for everyone to adopt our methodology. If for example a person's father is committing haraam, then it is the duty of the son to offer naseehat. He shall plead and advise his father. He will speak with affection and respect, addressing his father appropriately. If his father consumes liquor, he may not begin his naseehat by saying: "Drunkard! Faasiq, Faajir! On the other hand, if the father admonishes his son for the latter's misdemeanours, it will be proper for him (for the father) to say: 'O faasiq! O shaitaan!, etc. etc. Thus if a layman admonishes a Molvi who has strayed, he should not address him as we do, e.g. 'Ulama-e-Soo!, etc. Relationship, rank and position should be taken into consideration when criticizing. Everyone does not have the same right of acquittal. Furthermore, make dua of hidaayat and general goodness for those who are being criticized and for those whom we believe to be on baatil, and at the same time supplicate for our own safety and protection of Imaan, for we do not know what the morrow holds for us. So, do speak out strongly against baatil, but restrict the criticism to the acts and save the culprits from epithets. Don't imitate our example in this respect. ........................
Ml desai is a senior khalifah of moulana maseehullah khan sahib (R.A). after completing his studies he was set to go to America and become a lawyer, he went to india for some reason and visted ML maseehullah R.A, who made a great impression on his life. Ml maseehullah (R.A) took an immense liking to him and asked him to stay on and do his aalim course… and ml stayed, completed his aalim course and got khillafat. Ml is very strict on the shariah (who doesn’ know that!) and he is an extremely busy man, he does ALOT of deen work, runs thousands of maktabs and madaaris throughout the world, writes and translates loads of literature, has to reply to dozens of correspondence’s etc. Every day… and yet he finds time to personally cook a pot of food for the poor every morning and make it into sandwiches, the beggers of the town know ml’s home and come to fetch their sandwiches when they are hungry. Forget the beggers, ml feeds the wild birds who visit his yard everyday and he has soo much of taqwa and concern for the creation that when he goes to Durban and Johannesburg (which he does regularly) he gives the responsibility of feeding the birds every morning to his neighbor so that when those birds who are accustomed to finding their food come, they do not leave his yard disappointed! :Subhan: remember we not talking about a guy who has time to sit on his porch and count the stars, this is a man drowning in work!!! Ml only sleeps 2 hours per night and spends the rest of the night in ibaadah, my friend told me that she saw the musallah which ml uses to perform nafl salaah on, and that musallah has been used soo much that there are literally HOLES by the feet, hands and forehead places on that musallah! Also ml fasts every day except twice a week for years, unless he is travelling or seriously unwell etc. He lives extremely simple and is very humble, wears and patches his clothes until he can’t use them anymore. ML's entire house is bare of all unnecessary furniture (including couches and kitchen units!) every single room in his house (except his bedroom) resembles a library, almost the entire house, including the passage, has shelves from ceiling to floor and is lined with kitaabs upon kitaabs. He generally walks to the masjid for salaah. Eid nights he remains awake the entire night in ibaadah and deeni work. Also ml is constantly conscience of death, an example is: someone asked him why do you travel by car when going to Durban and Johannesburg (a 10 – 12 hour journey by car) instead of taking a flight? He replied that he won’t do so becoz he wouldn’t like maut to find him whilst in the plane amongst the kuffaaar and their liquor and nudity etc. he rather take the long journey and be safe! insha-ALLAH when i get more info on ml i will post...