Shibli Nomani
Shibli Nomani (4 June 1857 – 18 November 1914) was an Indian
Islamic scholar,
poet,
philosopher,
historian, educational thinker, author, orator, reformer and
critic of
orientalists during the
British Raj. He is regarded as the father of Urdu
historiography. He was also proficient in Arabic and Persian languages. Shibli was associated with two influential movements in the region, the
Aligarh and the
Nadwa movements. As a supporter of the
Deobandi school, he believed that English language and European sciences should be incorporated into the education system. Shibli wrote several biographies of Muslim heroes, convinced that Muslims of his time could learn valuable lessons from the past. His synthesis of past and modern ideas contributed significantly to Islamic literature produced in Urdu between 1910 and 1935. Shibli established the
Darul Musannefin Shibli Academy in 1914 to promote Islamic scholarship and also founded the
Shibli National College in 1883. He collected much material on the life of Muhammad, and completed the first two volumes of the planned work, ''Sirat al-Nabi''. His disciple,
Sulaiman Nadvi, added to this material and wrote the remaining five volumes after Shibli's death.
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