Among the great figures: Muhammad Hamidullah al-Haidarabadi

Islamic Stories

There are numerous prominent figures who left a clear mark on Islamic culture, yet whose presence in contemporary memory has since faded.

Muhammad Hamidullah is one of the most notable examples fitting this description.

A scholar of immense influence, his presence in today’s general culture is far less than what his prolific scientific output would suggest.

He was one of the great luminaries of modern Arab-Islamic culture: a hadith scholar and jurist, and one of the foremost scholars and preachers produced by the Indian subcontinent at large.

This man refused French citizenship when it was offered to him, rejecting it while remaining content and proud of his Hyderabadi nationality. More than 40,000 people converted to Islam under his guidance in France during the half-century he lived there. He mastered 22 languages, the last of which was Thai, learned at the age of 84. He never married; rather, he married only knowledge, from which he produced 450 books in various languages, as well as more than 937 articles in different world languages. He declined a valuable award from one of the Islamic countries, saying: “I wrote what I wrote solely for the sake of God Almighty, so do not spoil my religion for me.” Despite his immense scholarly stature at the time, he would wash the dishes by hand with his students during their travels in France.

When he received the highest honor from the late President of Pakistan, Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, for his distinguished work on the Prophet’s biography, he donated the award’s value—one million rupees—to the Institute of Islamic Studies in Islamabad, saying: “If I were to accept an award in this fleeting world, what would I gain in the Hereafter, the abiding abode?”

Born in 1908 in Hyderabad, southern India, he belonged to a family whose roots trace back to the Quraysh tribe, which migrated from the Hejaz to Basra to escape the tyranny of al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf, before settling in India during the eighth century CE. In 1934, he enrolled at the French Sorbonne University, where he earned his second doctorate for his dissertation titled “Islamic Diplomacy in the Prophetic Era and the Rightly Guided Caliphate.” This work later became his most famous book in Arabic, titled “A Collection of Political Documents from the Prophetic Era and the Rightly Guided Caliphate,” which remains his most renowned publication.

God honored him with the translation of the Quran into French. He was the first to prove that the noble hadiths were written down during the Prophet’s (peace and blessings be upon him) lifetime, through his critical study of the Sahifa of Hammam ibn Munabbih, based on the Berlin manuscript. After verifying and annotating it, he added an introduction on the history of hadith compilation. It was published in Beirut. This Sahifa contains hadiths written by the famous companion Abu Hurayra from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and is known as the “Authentic Sahifa.” It was then transmitted by his student, Hammam ibn Munabbih. This is the earliest written record we have of the Prophet. He discovered its manuscripts in Berlin while studying in Germany. Later, Dr. Ziaur Rahman Siddiqui directed him to another copy of the Sahifa in the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus. He verified this Sahifa, compared the two copies, and wrote a comprehensive introduction on the compilation and writing of hadith during the Prophetic era. With clear proofs and conclusive arguments, he demonstrated that hadiths were indeed written during the Prophet’s days. He also noted that the Prophet wrote a charter for the Muhajireen, the Ansar, and the Jews to regulate their interactions, which is considered the first constitutional document of the Islamic state, whose head was the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). Thus, he refuted the false claims spread by enemies of the religion, who assert: “The hadiths were not written down until after the third century of the Hijra.” He extracted the 138 hadiths contained in this Sahifa, which has since been translated into Urdu, French, English, and Turkish.

This man did not cease working and writing until he was bedridden for two years before his death, during which time he was with his niece in the United States.

"The body is consumed by the duties of service,

And the heart is tormented by the loftiness of its aspirations.

Life thus passes in toil,

And rest has perished—may mercy be upon it."

He passed away in 2002 at the age of ninety-four. He was the esteemed Sheikh Dr. Muhammad Hamidullah al-Haidarabadi al-Hindi. May God grant him a vast mercy and settle him in the spacious gardens of Paradise.

"Resolutions come in proportion to the resolve of the determined,

And noble deeds come in proportion to the nobility of the noble.

Small matters appear small in the eyes of the insignificant,

And great matters appear small in the eyes of the great."

$ Imam and Khatib