مجموعة ٦ / ٨ (١) "سلسلة مطبوعة: ١٩٢٩ إلى ١٩٣٨". [و‎‎٢‎٥‎٣] (١٠٦٢/٥١٠)

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also permitted him to continue his educational work. Maulana Abdul
Jlaqi was carrying on this work without any help from outside till 1343
i I k t j iat / ea ^ ^ ovem ment of His Exalted Highness the Nizam
of Hyderabad offered Maulana Abdul Baqi financial help to establish a
Madrasa m Medina and engage the services of some Hanafi Ulemas to
help him m the work which he was till then carrying on single handed and
this offer was accepted and the Institution was named Nizamiah
When the present Government came in power in Hejaz for about a year
there was no government school whera Quran Sharif was taught to the boys,
and Maulana Abdul Baqi felt the necessity of opening a class for teaching
Quran Sharif to boys and he did so. This boys’ class was abolished in his
Madrasa as soon as the Saudiah Government school was opened. Long ago
after the boys’ class was abolished in the Madrasa Nizamiah, Mecca autho
rities ordered Maulana Abdul Baqi to accept a teacher in his school,
appointed by the Government, to teach “Tauhid” (the Unity of God), but
on his representing the matter to the Amir of Medina, the Madrasa Niza
miah was exempted, as no boys received education in that Madrasah, and
all the students were grown up men who had completed theological educa
tion and were getting post graduate lectures. The Madrasah was doing its
work without interference from the Saudi Government till the beginning of
this month, when Sheikh-ul-Islam of Mecca, Sheikh Abdulla bin Hassan
came to Medina and ordered Maulana Abdul Baqi to accept a teacher ap
pointed by the Government, to teach “Tauhid” to the professors and the
students of his Madrasa, otherwise the Madrasa will be closed.
Maulana Abdul Baqi considered the order derogatory to his co-workers
and his students position and refused to accept it, and consequently he has
been ordered by Abdulla bin Hasan to close his Madrasa. There are more
than thirty students in the Madrasa from India, Afghanistan, Bokhara,
Turkistan and other parts of the world, who are recognised Ulemas in their
countries, and have come here to take the post graduate diploma from this
Madrasa in “Tafsir” and “Hadis”.
The curriculum of this Madrasa is fixed according to the Hanafi sect
of Islam, and has the sanction of the Nizam’s Government. The Saudi
Government has always professed that it recognised the four Sunni sects,
viz., Hanafi, Shafaee, Malaki, and Hanbli; but the order of Shaikh Abdulla
bin Hasan is an open interference with the doctrines and teaching of the
Hanafi sect, and a compulsion to follow the teachings of the Whabiism.
Mecca and Medina are centres for all the sects of Islam, and have a resident
population of all sects, and pilgrims of all Islamic sects visit these places
every year If compulsion of this sort is going to be forced by the Saudi
Government to compel people of other sects to accept and follow Wahabi
teachings, great estrangement of feelings will be the result which may lead
to extremes of tyranny and hardships.
Freedom of thought and religion is recognised by international laws,
and the Moslem subjects of foreign governments have every right to expect
from their respective government to give them the necessary protection m
these matters in these sacred towns of Islam.
(98)
Endorsement by the Foreign and Political Department, No. F.-4 N-/31,
DATED THE 24TH OCTOBER 1931.
\
A copy of the undermentioned paper is forwarded to the Hon ble the
Besident at Hyderabad, for information.
Memorandum from H.M.’s Charge d’Affairea, Jedia, dated the 12th September 1931,
and enclosure (Serial No. 95).