A Pakistani researcher shared information about the life of one of the famous religious and political figures of British India and Pakistan, who was born in Khujand, Tajikistan. He was the imam of the largest mosque in British India and was one of the supporters of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of modern Pakistan.
Source: Sputnik Tajikistan (Russia)
IN THE PHOTO: Ahmad Shah Nurani Siddiqi, a well-known Pakistani politician, a descendant of Allam Nazir Khujandi.
Arif Hasan Akhundzadah, a well-known Pakistani scholar of Tajik origin, told Sputnik Tajikistan that Allameh Nazir Ahmad Khujandi was one of the most influential religious figures in British India, whose ancestors came from the city of Khujand, Tajikistan.
“At one time, he was respected by rulers, politicians, and Muslim religious figures, and he had many followers,” said Aref Hassan Akhundzada.
According to Akhundzada, Allameh Nazir Ahmad Khujandi, known as Allameh Khujandi, was born on December 28, 1887, in the city of Meerut, British India. His family claimed that their lineage went back to the first caliph of Islam, Hazrat Abu Bakr Siddiq, and hence they were nicknamed "Siddiqi".
“After Islam came to the Turkic-Iranian lands, his ancestors moved to the city of Khojent in the Ferghana Valley, on the territory of present-day Tajikistan, and settled there forever. Later, in 1525, his grandfather, the Sufi Hamiduddin Siddiqi, traveled to India with the Timurid emperor Babur and settled in the Lavar district of the city of Meerut. The Shah gave Sufi Hamiduddin land and the prestigious title of “mansabdar” in this city,” said Aref Hasan Akhundzada.
According to him, Allama Nazir Khujandi began his primary education at the age of ten and received a degree in Islamic studies and “military science” from the Meerut Islamic School.
“His teachers were his father Maulana Abdul Hakim “Jash” and the famous scholar Maulana Ahmad. Allameh Nazir was a great writer and poet who spoke Urdu, Farsi, and Arabic. He was a student of Maulana Shah Ali Hossein Ashrafi,” said the Pakistani scholar.
According to his narration, at the beginning of the last century, Nazir Ahmad Khujandi became the imam of the cathedral mosque of Delhi, the largest and most important Muslim mosque in India.
“In this capacity, he befriended the man who later created Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah. In 1916, he married Jinnah to Ruthie Dinshaw, a Zoroastrian whom he converted to Islam. During the 1930s and 1940s, Allameh Nazir supported the so-called Muslim separatist policies of Jinnah and his Muslim League party, which led to the creation of Pakistan in 1947,” said Arif Hasan Akhundzadah.
According to him, Allameh Nazir Ahmad Khujandi was the brother of the famous Pakistani cleric Shah Abdul Alim Siddiqi and the paternal uncle of the famous Pakistani religious politician Maulana Shah Ahmad Nurani, leader of the Jamiat Ulema Pakistan, one of the influential parties of the country.
Allama Nazir Ahmad Siddiqi Khujandi died on June 6, 1949, in the Medina Radiant and was buried near the grave of the wife of the Prophet Muhammad - Bibi Ayishi Siddiqi.
Arif Hassan Akhundzada is a well-known Tajik-Pakistani scholar who studies the history of Tajiks in India and Pakistan. He had previously claimed that Ustad Ahmad Me'mor Lahori, the chief architect during the reign of Shah Jahan, who designed the tomb of Mumtaz Mahal, known as the Taj Mahal in the Indian city of Agra, was actually from the city of Khujand in present-day Tajikistan.
