Munshi Mohammad Meherullah

Munshi Mohammad Meherullah
Born 1861
Kaliganj, Jessore District, Bengal Presidency, British India (now Bangladesh)
Died 1907
Language Bengali

Munshi Mohammad Meherullah (26 December 1861 – 1907) was a Muslim poet, religious leader and social reformer from Bengal.[1] He is best known for his oratory and writing on Islam and comparative religion and his efforts has been compared to Raja Ram Mohan Roy's defense of Hinduism against British colonialism and Christian proselytization.[2][3]

Life

Early life

Munshi Mohammad Meherullah was born to Munshi Mohammad Wares in Jessore District in 1861. He learnt Arabic, Persian and Urdu at the local madrassah. When Meherullah was a 9 or 10 years old, the death of his father and penury compelled him to pursue further education.[4][5] He thereby took up tailoring as a profession.[5]

Religious conversions

Christian missionaries started making inroads into Muslim society in the last decades of the 19th century. Professor Abdul Hai writes: "During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Muslims started getting converted themselves into Christianity in different districts of Bangladesh. Lack of education, inadequacy of conviction in Islam and temptations for material interests motivated the Muslims in question to accept the rulers’ religion."[3][6]

Meherullah himself confessed that he was greatly attracted to Christianity at this point.[5] M.A. Majid mentions this in Chotoder Munshi Mohammad Meher Ullah. According to Majid, Meherullah became a Christian, moved to Darjeeling and lived under the patronage of Christian missionaries.[2] There, he studied the books written by Muslim dais and reverted to Islam.[2]

Religious activism

Munshi Mohammad Meherullah, returned to Jessore District and with his converted disciple Munshi Jamiruddin, adopted oratory method known as bahas[2] (disputation) and sought to refute Christian missionaries.[7][8] He was able to re-convert numerous Muslims who had been converted to Christianity. He established Madrasaye Karamatia and Islam Dharmottejika Sabha in 1889 at Manoharpur village in Jessore. He contributed regularly to Muslim newspapers like the Sudhakar and Islam Pracharak published from Kolkata.[1][5]

According to Kenneth W. Jones, no other Muslim preacher contributed to polemical literature in that period. However, while debating Christian missionaries, Meherullah called for intra- communal harmony and unity of Muslims.[5]

Notable works

Munshi Meherullah wrote at least 10 books between 1886 and 1908, which include[6]

Death and evaluation

He died on 7 May 1907.[1] Professor Abdul Hai, remarked "Meherullah proved to be the Ram Mohan of the Muslims of Bengal — Ram Mohan saved the Hindus from being converted to Christianity in the early nineteenth century and Meherullah saved the Muslims from being proselytized to Christianity in the late Nineteenth century."[3][7]

E M School in Jessore was renamed as Munshi Meherulla Academy in his honor. Organizations such as Munshi Meherulla Social Welfare Organization and Meherullah Foundation were working in Jessore as of 2014.[4]

Bangladesh published a stamp of face value 2 taka in his honor in 1995.[9]

References

  1. 1 2 3 Hussain, Mohsin (2012). "Meherullah, Munshi Mohammad". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Islam, Md. Mohirul (February 2014). "The Valiant Warrior of the Insomnia of Bengali Muslim: A Study of Mahammad Meherulla". International Journal of Advanced Research in Management and Social Sciences. 3 (02).
  3. 1 2 3 Abdul Hai, Muhammad; Ahsan, Syed Ali (2010). Bangla Sahityer Itibritto: Adhunik Jug (History of Bengali Literature: Modern Period) (11th Reprint ed.). Dhaka: Ahmed Publishing House. pp. 13 and 99.
  4. 1 2 "Birth anniv of poet Munshi Md Meherullah today". The Financial Express. Dhaka. 26 December 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Jones, Kenneth W. (1992). Religious Controversy in British India: Dialogues in South Asian Languages. SUNY Press. pp. 104–111. ISBN 0791408280. Retrieved 9 August 2016.
  6. 1 2 Kabir, Nurul (1 September 2013). "Colonialism, politics of language and partition of Bengal PART XV". The New Age. Retrieved 2 January 2014.
  7. 1 2 Kabir, Nurul (1 September 2013). "Colonialism, politics of language and partition of Bengal PART XVI". The New Age. The New Age. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  8. ↑ Khan, Muhammad Mojlum (2013). The Muslim Heritage of Bengal: The Lives, Thoughts and Achievements of Great Muslim Scholars, Writers and Reformers of Bangladesh and West Bengal (1st ed.). Kube Publishing Ltd. p. 215. ISBN 9781847740625. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  9. ↑ "BANGLADESH 1995 Commemorative Stamps". Stampedia. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
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