Abdul Bari Firangi Mahali

The Arabic biography records that he studied under Shaykh Abd al-Baqi al-Firangi Mahali, travelled to the Haramayn and to Baghdad, where he studied hadith and jurisprudence, and worked as an assistant professor at Pune in 1916 ¹. The Urdu biography states that he entered the Qadiriyya order as a disciple of Shah Abdul Razzaq Hansvi and received authorisation and succession in all the orders, and that he was among the close friends of Haji Waris Ali Shah ².

During the First World War he asked the Sultan of Turkey to support Britain or remain out of the war; on 26 January 1919 he presided over a protest meeting in Lucknow against the British attitude towards Muslims, and he was highly active in the Khilafat movement ³. The Urdu biography records that he issued a fatwa of jihad against the British government, and that he raised his voice against the demolition of the graves of the Companions and the elders of the faith ². He preached Hindu-Muslim unity, especially during the Khilafat agitation, was an associate of Mahatma Gandhi, and on other occasions urged Muslims not to sacrifice cows out of respect for Hindus ³.

In his opposition to Western education he founded the Madarsa-i-Nizamia in Lucknow; he set up the Anjuman-i-Khuddam-i-Kabba in 1914 to prevent the desecration of Muslim holy places; and he was a founder member of Darul Musannefin, the Shibli Academy (1915–1916), and of Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920 ³¹. His 111 books ranged across hadith, exegesis, jurisprudence, legal theory, inheritance law, logic, philosophy, grammar, biography and the Sufi path ².

No article read names a legal school for Abdul Bari himself: the English article's infobox gives his religion as Islam only ³, the Arabic article calls him a Muslim scholar ¹, and Wikidata likewise gives Islam only ⁴. His Sufi discipleship under Shah Abdul Razzaq Hansvi is attested in the Urdu article's text, as set out above ². The museum records his faith as unattested at the two-source bar and preserves the discipleship attestation in the data record.

He died on 19 January 1926, a date the Urdu biography pairs as 4 Rajab 1344 AH ²; the English article and Wikidata give only the year ³.

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