Vakkom Moulavi

Vakkom Mohammed Abdul Khader Moulavi (28 December 1873 – 31 October 1932), popularly known as Vakkom Moulavi, was a social reformer, teacher, prolific writer, Muslim scholar, journalist, freedom fighter and newspaper proprietor in Travancore, a former princely state in southern India in present-day Kerala. ¹ He was the founder and publisher of the newspaper Swadeshabhimani, banned and confiscated by the Government of Travancore in 1910 for its criticisms of the government and the Diwan, P. Rajagopalachari; he was an avid reader of Rashid Rida's magazine Al-Manar, and is known as the father of Islamic renaissance in Kerala. ¹ The Malayalam article likewise records that he started the Swadeshabhimani from Anchuthengu. ²

Moulavi was born in 1873 in Vakkom, Chirayinkil Taluk, Thiruvananthapuram in Travancore, into the prominent Poonthran family, which had originally migrated from Colachel, Tamil Nadu, while his maternal ancestors were from Hyderabad and Anjengo. ¹ His father, a prominent merchant, engaged a number of scholars from distant places, including an itinerant Arab savant, to teach him every subject he wished to learn; Moulavi progressed so rapidly that some teachers exhausted their stock of knowledge, and in a short time he had learnt Arabic, Persian, Tamil, Urdu, Sanskrit and English. ¹

Maulavi started the Swadeshabhimani newspaper on 19 January 1905, declaring that "the paper will not hesitate to expose injustices to the people in any form", but on 26 September 1910 the newspaper and press were sealed and confiscated by the Indian Imperial Police, and the editor Ramakrishna Pillai was arrested and banished from Travancore to Thirunelveli. ¹ After the confiscation Moulavi concentrated on social and cultural activities and wrote several books: Daussabah and Islam Matha Sidantha Samgraham are original works, while his translations include Imam Ghazali's Keemiya-e-Saadat. ¹

This section reports positions attributed in the sources; it is not the museum's verdict. Vakkom Moulavi defined religious reform as the endeavour to purify Islam and bring it back to its original form as practised by the Salaf al-Salih, based on the Qur'an and Hadith as the fundamental authorities, distinguishing Islah al-din ("reforming religion") from al-Islah al-dini ("religiously based reform"), the rectifying of defects that had befallen religion in history. ¹ In his treatise Islam Mata Navikaranam he wrote that religious education at madrasas should depend only on the Qur'an and Hadith, and that the teachings of the Qur'an, the words and actions of the Rasul, the practices of the Salaf and true principles of Tawhid should be propagated among the people. ¹ Moulavi is considered one of the greatest reformers in the Kerala Muslim community and is widely called the "Father of Muslim Renaissance in Kerala"; he emphasised religion's religious and socioeconomic aspects over the ritualistic, and campaigned for modern education, the education of women, and the elimination of potentially bad customs among the Muslim community. ¹ Influenced by Muhammad Abduh of Egypt and his reform movement, Moulavi started journals modelled on Al-Manar: Muslim in January 1906, followed by Al-Islam (1918) and Deepika (1931). ¹ Al-Islam opposed Nerchas and Uroos festivals among Muslims, attracting orthodox opposition to the extent that a fatwa declared reading it sacrilege; financial troubles closed it within five issues, but it is regarded as the pioneer journal of religious reform among Kerala's Mappilas. ¹ His campaigning led the Maharaja's Government to introduce Arabic teaching in all state schools with Muslim pupils, with fee concessions and scholarships; Moulavi wrote Arabic textbooks for children and a manual for training Arabic instructors, and was made chief examiner for the state's qualifying examinations for Arabic teachers. ¹ He campaigned, with his disciples and like-minded scholars, against the dowry system, extravagant wedding expenditure and annual urs and Moharrum celebrations; as the movement grew, some mullahs issued fatwas that he was a "kafir" and others branded him a "Wahhabi", according to the article. ¹ He founded the All Travancore Muslim Mahajanasabha and the Chirayinkil Taluk Muslim Samajam, chaired the Muslim Board of the Government of Travancore, and his activities were instrumental in establishing the Muslim Aikya Sangham, a united forum for the Muslims of Travancore, Cochin and Malabar. ¹ In 1931 he founded the Islamia Publishing House, where his eldest son Abdul Salam supervised the Malayalam translation and publication of Allama Shibli's biography of Omar Farooq as Al Farooq. ¹

Abd al-Qadir Moulavi died on 31 October 1932 CE / 1351 AH, and his funeral rites were conducted by his disciples strictly according to the Sunnah, without local superstitions and innovations, according to the article. ¹ A few days later Rashid Rida published a eulogy of the Moulavi in Al-Manar, introducing him as his friend in Malabar and writing that in his madhhab of revival and reform "he was a Salafi", who did not blindly follow any school that was not the madhhab of Ahlus-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah, and who called for abandoning shirk, superstitions and innovations by adhering to the Book and the Sunnah and the biography of the Salaf al-Salih. ¹ Rida's testimony is reported here as it stands in the English article; it and the infobox's "Islahi (Reformist Salafism)" movement line are one source family in the entity data, so Moulavi's school remains recorded as unknown under the two-source rule, as set out in full in the entity faith note. ^{1 3}

• The defined sources cited above, registered in data/source/.