By Rumaisa Nazeeruddin
The island of Malta feels like a blip on the map. The smallest country in the European Union, it spans a mere 122 square miles, almost half the size of Chicago. Standing on the island, one feels as though they are immersed in the ruggedness of nature. Jagged cliffs surround the island, with the vast Mediterranean Sea stretching out in every direction.
Yet Malta’s small size belies the role it has played in the history of the Mediterranean region. Its position between Europe and North Africa rendered it valuable to numerous empires, and under British rule, it emerged as a naval outpost with strategic importance. During the First World War, the island was a convenient place to hold prisoners captured from across the Ottoman world. Among those prisoners was an elderly Indian scholar from Deoband, Mawlana Mahmud Hasan, better known as Shaykh al-Hind.
Background to Shaykh al-Hind
Shaykh al-Hind, an erudite scholar, was the first student of Darul Uloom Deoband and went on to become its principal. His students include powerhouses of subcontinental scholars such as Mawlana Ashraf Ali Thanvi, Mawlana Anwar Shah Kashmiri, and Mawlana Hussain Ahmed Madani. Along with his substantial academic contributions, Shaykh al-Hind was also deeply involved in the political interests of Muslims at the time.
In order to appreciate Shaykh al-Hind’s political legacy, one must turn to British India wherein he originally resided. As the web of British rule strengthened in India, Shaykh al-Hind played a key role in political resistance. His concern for the ummah was global and rooted in his deep desire for Muslim success. Mawlana Hussain Ahmad Madani, one of his most devoted pupils, recounts that following the outbreak of the Balkan Wars in 1912–1913 and the subsequent Ottoman defeat, the Shaykh’s anxiety and concern for the fate of the Muslim polity intensified with each passing day.
In regards to resistance against British colonial powers within India, Shaykh al-Hind understood that opposition to such a system required more than moral outrage. Mawlana Madani repeatedly presents the Shaykh as a man concerned with qābilīyyāt, an Urdu word representing the capacity of a people to become free and to sustain that freedom once acquired. Desire for independence did not itself create the conditions of independence. A population had to possess discipline, organization, leadership, political judgment, and institutions capable of translating conviction into action. Shaykh al-Hind understood and articulated that desire and emotion are not enough to reign victorious. Individuals must be rooted in a philosophical, moral, and political framework through which their actions can benefit their country and the Muslim civilization at large.
Silk Letter Movement
This preamble into Shaykh al-Hind’s philosophy provides us with a lens from which we can view his initial efforts within India and beyond, such as the visionary Silk Letter Movement. This movement was an anti-colonial political and military effort organized by Indian Muslim scholars during the First World War. It emerged from the recognition that British rule in India could not be challenged through local protest alone. The British controlled the army, the administration, the railways, the telegraph, and the major channels of communication. Any serious attempt to weaken their rule therefore required coordination across borders and the creation of alliances with powers that were already opposed to Britain.
The movement began to take shape through the work of Shaykh al-Hind and his students at Deoband. One of the most important figures in this effort was Mawlana ʿUbayd Allah Sindhi, who traveled to Afghanistan in 1915 with the hope of establishing a base outside British control. Afghanistan was central to the plan because it bordered India and possessed the political and geographic position from which an invasion or frontier uprising might be organized. From Kabul, Sindhi attempted to build relations with the Afghan government, communicate with Indian revolutionaries, and seek assistance from the Ottoman Empire and Germany, both of which were fighting Britain during the war.
At the same time, Shaykh al-Hind traveled to the Hijaz to seek support from Ottoman officials and other Muslim leaders. His efforts were part of a broader attempt to connect the political concerns of Indian Muslims with the international conflict created by the First World War. The Ottoman Empire’s entry into the war against Britain made cooperation seem possible. If Afghanistan could be persuaded to act, if support could be obtained from the Ottomans and Germans, and if resistance could be organized within India, British authority might be placed under pressure from several directions at once.
In the Hijaz, Shaykh al-Hind hoped to strengthen the Ottoman connection. Mawlana Madani records meetings involving major Ottoman figures, including Enver Pasha and Jamal Pasha, regarding the wider effort to secure political support against Britain. Unfortunately, the Hijaz soon became the place where Shaykh al-Hind’s strategy was most severely disrupted. In 1916, Sharif Hussain of Mecca revolted against Ottoman rule with British backing. A region that Shaykh al-Hind had entered while seeking assistance from Britain’s Ottoman enemy was suddenly controlled by a ruler whose political future depended largely upon British support.
Capture from Makkah
Sharif Hussain, aware of the Shaykh’s presence and motivations, sent a proclamation declaring support for himself and doing takfīr of the Ottomans, to Shaykh al-Hind, instructing that he sign it. Shaykh al-Hind refused, later citing in a British interrogation that his refusal was due to the proclamation being contrary to the Shariʿah. Due to this incident and British surveillance of his larger anti-colonial efforts, Shaykh al-Hind found himself in an increasingly dangerous position. Mawlana Madani writes that he recognized this and repeatedly attempted to leave Makkah. However, escape proved formidable due to multiple forces closing in on him. While he was in hiding, Hussain’s authorities detained men connected with him, including his close companions Mawlawī ʿAzīz Gul and Ḥakīm Nuṣrat Hussain, and threatened them in order to force his appearance. Eventually, Shaykh al-Hind, too, was caught and taken as a prisoner.
Shaykh al-Hind and his four companions were transported by the authorities from Makkah toward Jeddah by camel. In Jeddah, Sharif Hussain’s soldiers guarded them for about a month while arrangements were made for their onward movement. Madani describes an official called Bahaʾ al-Din who became involved in arranging an “out-boat.” Eventually, the prisoners were put aboard a vessel bound for Suez.
At Suez, the character of their custody changed. Armed European personnel received them, and Indian soldiers were assigned to guard them as they understood the language and could relay any communication between the group members. They were then moved into the British military detention system in Egypt and eventually confined in the Cairo and Giza area. Here, Shaykh al-Hind and his companions were interrogated separately. Mawlana Madani remembers the psychological strain of these first days with distinct clarity. Shaykh al-Hind was primarily worried about the others who had been arrested because of their attachment to him. For nearly a week, he ate almost nothing, surviving largely on tea and betel leaf, while worrying about what might be happening to companions he could no longer see.
In February of 1917, the British commander informed them that they would be transferred to Malta. They were taken to the Cairo railway station, transported by train to Alexandria, and placed aboard a ship with a large number of Ottoman prisoners of war. Mawlana Madani says that roughly fifteen hundred Turkish soldiers were aboard, while the officers were housed separately. The ship travelled under wartime conditions and was accompanied by a warship for protection. Every prisoner was issued a flotation device and assigned a place in a lifeboat. Drills were regularly held as some form of attack was considered a serious risk. Shaykh al-Hind took the danger seriously enough to distribute treasured objects connected with his teachers, including items associated with Hadji Imadad Allah, Mawlana Muhammad Qasim Nanotwi, and Mawlana Rashid Ahmad Gangohi.
Arrival and Life in Malta
After a five day long journey, they reached Malta on 21 February 1917, wherein they resided for three years and four months. Mawlana Madani gives a detailed description of Malta in his book, Safar Nama Aseer-e-Malta. At first, they lived in tents in Rog Camp, where the cold and damp troubled them severely. Shaykh al-Hind had always been sensitive to cold, and Mawlana Madani remembers that even Indian winters caused pain in his knees and swelling in his hands and feet. Malta was worse. Yet Shaykh al-Hind continued rising at night for tahajjud. Because he suffered from a physical problem and frequently had to repeatedly renew his wuḍūʾ, the cold water was especially difficult. His companions eventually heated a large container of water at night, wrapped it in blankets, and kept it warm until morning so that he could perform wuḍūʾ without using freezing water.
Fort Verdalla, Malta; British fort barracks where it is likely prisoners were held including Shaykh al-Hind
Shaykh al-Hind’s days in Malta followed a strict schedule. Lights were put out around ten at night. Shaykh al-Hind usually rose around one or one-thirty in the morning, performed wuḍūʾ, prayed tahajjud, and then remained in murāqabah and silent dhikr until Fajr. After Fajr, he stayed until ishraq, then returned for tea and eggs, which his attendants insisted upon because he ate so little. He recited Dalāʾil al-Khayrāt, read Qur’an, revised his translation, wrote letters when mail was permitted, and taught from the few books available to them, including Mishkāt and Tirmidhī. In the afternoon he sometimes visited other sections of the camp or rested in the sun, which eased the pain caused by the cold.
The camp itself became an international society of sorts. Mawlana Madani describes Ottoman officers, German prisoners, Syrian Arab sailors, shops, hospitals, mail censorship, recreation, and study. Prisoners could sometimes walk several miles under armed guard. In summer they were taken to the sea and allowed to swim within a marked area while soldiers watched from the shore. Newspapers such as The Times, al-Ahrām, and al-Muqattam circulated under restrictions, and prisoners translated news into Arabic, Turkish, German, and other languages for one another. Mawlana Madani even describes the camps as resembling a kind of university because men of different backgrounds taught one another languages, politics, history, and other subjects.
Return and End of Life in India
When he was finally allowed to return to India in 1920, British officials were still sufficiently concerned about his influence that a Criminal Investigation Department officer met him aboard the ship in Bombay, and an intermediary tried to persuade him to return quietly to Deoband and stay away from political agitation. Shaykh al-Hind remained unshaken despite the trials and tribulations he had faced over the last few years. He went on to lay the foundation stone of Jamia Millia Islamia at Aligarh. The institution arose in the atmosphere of the Khilafat and Non-Cooperation movements and was consciously conceived outside the structures of colonial educational dependence.
Shaykh al-Hind did not live to see the end of British rule in India. Yet his legacy largely contributed to later efforts to free India from British rule and gain independence, continuing through the scholars, institutions, and movements that succeeded him. His massive political and ‘ʿilmī legacy impacted future generations all over the world. From his efforts, one can see that resistance cannot be sustained on the basis of pure emotion. It requires a philosophical, moral, and political framework together with the intellectual discipline in order to establish proactive rather than reactive societies. Periods of crisis tend to either incite emotion without any direction, but Shaykh al-Hind’s life points toward the need for principled, intellectually grounded, and institutionally sustained responses. His example reminds us that even when immediate success is uncertain, the work of developing individuals, building institutions, and acting within a clear moral framework can shape possibilities far beyond one’s own lifetime.
Sources
Madani, Sayyid Husain Ahmad. Safarnāmah-yi Asīr-i Mālṭā.
Bijnori, Mufti Azeezur Rahman. Tazkira-e-Shaikh-ul-Hind. Idara Madni Daruttaleef, 1965.
