Najm al-Din Akhundzada

Najm al-Din Akhundzada — the Mulla of Hadda — came, by the account of Edwards' informants, from the Ghazni region, and reached the Akhund of Swat ('Abd al-Ghafur) at Saidu in Swat, becoming his disciple and performing the zikr, the spiritual exercises of the Sufi order.¹ The Akhund sent him to settle at Hadda, south of Jalalabad, to propagate Islam and tariqat, the Sufi path; there he built a mosque, where he taught, and a hospice that fed students and travellers.¹ A second, independent account records that the Akhund gave him permission to teach all four prominent Sufi schools from his seat at Hadda.²

From Hadda his influence spread through a line of deputies and disciples among the frontier tribes — the Hazrat of Butkhak, his favoured deputy, and the Haji of Turangzai among them — until, in Edwards' phrase, he was tied by teacher and student to virtually every religious notable of the region.¹ The British watched him as 'the most influential of the mullah fraternity', and Amir 'Abd al-Rahman tried, and failed, to draw him into the state's service; the Mulla refused office and would not read the khutba in the Amir's name.¹

When the frontier rose in 1897, the call was issued in his name and the tribes moved through his network; British officers wrote of him that he had 'for years been spreading sedition and preaching a Jehad'.¹ The International Encyclopedia of the First World War names 'Najmuddin al-Din, known as the Hadda Mullah (?-1902)' among the most prominent of the frontier mullahs and calls him 'the famous anti-British Mullah' whose mantle others inherited.³ Edwards, following the descendants of his disciples, gives his death as 1903 and describes him as an old man at his death; no source gives a year for his birth.¹

His Sufi affiliation is attested personally, not only by office: Edwards recounts his discipleship, his performance of the order's zikr and his dispatch to Hadda to propagate tariqat, and the Tribal Analysis Center report independently records his authorisation to teach the four Sufi schools.¹² No single named order is attested for him personally, so his faith is recorded as sufi, without an order value.