Syed Ahmad Barelvi
| Syed Ahmad Barelvi | |
|---|---|
| Born |
29 November 1786 Raebareli, Raebareli district, British India, now Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Died | 6 May 1831 (aged 44) Balakot, Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan |
| Known for | Battle of Balakot |
Syed Ahmad Shaheed Barelvi (1786–1831), belonged to Raebareli in India. Raebareli was a part of historical United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. Thus he is named in historical and contemporary writings as Barelvi with respect to his place of origin. He was a revolutionary Islamist in India, during Colonial period. He followed Sunni (Hanafi) ideology and was a Sufi as well. He got primary ideological teachings from Shah Abdul Aziz in Delhi. During last years of his life, his supporters designated him an Amir al-Mu'minin ("Commander of the Believers"), and Shaheed ("martyr") after his death in the Battle of Balakot in 1831. He is thought by at least one scholar (Edward Mortimer), to have anticipated modern Islamists in waging jihad and attempting to create an Islamic state with strict enforcement of Islamic law, and by at least one other (Olivier Roy), to be the first modern Islamic leader to lead a movement that was "religious, military and political," and to address the common people and rulers with a call for jihad.
Syed Ahmad was influenced by Shah Abdul Aziz, son of Shah Waliullah. He toured India preaching Islamic renewal and jihad, and built a highly developed network of personal friends and partisans spread across northern India organized to recruit and dispatch men and financial aid. In 1826 he provided an Islamic challenge to an expanding Sikh empire when he along with few hundred disciples, supported by his network, arrived in Peshawar, (now in Pakistan), to establish an Islamic state among Pashtun tribes in the area.
Syed Ahmad and hundreds of his troops and followers were killed by the Sikh army in Balakot, Mansehra District in 1831, but a number of his followers survived and continued to fight on, taking part in tribal uprisings in the North-west province as late as 1897.
At the age of twenty-five, Ahmad joined a militia as a cavalry man. The militia was led by Amir Khan, in Northern India, one of the many military adventurers of this period, who had organized a body of free-floating demilitarized soldiers of the area to raid and conquer, with the ultimate goal of setting himself up as a prince. Barbara Metcalf theorizes this period in Sayyid Ahmad's life as a time of maturation, when he began to synthesize his experience in state-making and his pious commitment to the Sharia. After about six years of service, however, he left the militia because Amir Khan chose to make peace with the British in return for the rule of a small estate. From Sayyid Ahmad's perspective, this was a strategic disaster because it amounted to surrendering to the greatest threat that Muslims faced in India.
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