Muhammad Taqi Usmani


Muhammad Taqi Usmani is a Pakistani Islamic scholar and former judge who is Vice President and Shaykh al-Hadith at Darul Uloom Karachi. An intellectual leader of the Deobandi movement, he has authored more than 80 books in Urdu, Arabic and English, including a translation of the Qur'an in both English and Urdu as well a 6-volume commentary on the Sahih Muslim in Arabic, having written and lectured extensively on hadith, and Islamic finance. He chairs the Shariah Board of the Bahrain-based Accounting and Auditing Organization for Islamic Financial Institutions. He is also a permanent member of the Jeddah-based International Islamic Fiqh Academy, an organ of the OIC.
In Pakistan, Usmani served as a scholar judge on the Shariat Appellate Bench of the Supreme Court from 1982 to 2002, and on the Federal Shariat Court from 1981 to 1982. From 1977 to 1981 he was a member of Zia's Council of Islamic Ideology and was involved in drafting the Hudood Ordinances.

Early life and education

Muhammad Taqi Usmani was born on 5 Shawwal 1362 AH in the city of Deoband in Saharanpur district, United Provinces, British India. He was the fifth and youngest son of Mufti Muhammad Shafi. With his full nasab, he is Muhammad Taqi ibn Mufti Muhammad Shafi ibn Shaikh Muhammad Yasin ibn Khalifah Tahsin Ali ibn Miyanji Imam Ali ibn Miyanji Hafiz Karim Allah ibn Miyanji Khair Allah ibn Miyanji Shukr Allah. The forefathers of Miyanji Shukr Allah are unknown, but the family claims descent from Uthman, the third caliph and a companion of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, hence the nisbat "Usmani".
Usmani was born to several generations of educators. The title "Miyanji" applied to several of his ancestors indicates that they were teachers. His grandfather Muhammad Yasin taught Farsi at Darul Uloom Deoband. Born the year before the madrasah's founding, he had been one of its first students and studied with some of its early teachers including Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi, Sayyid Ahmad Dihlawi, Mulla Mahmud Deobandi, and Mahmud al-Hasan Deobandi. Usmani's father Muhammad Shafi was also a product of the Deoband seminary. He taught there for several decades and held the post of chief mufti.
In 1948, when Usmani was four years old, his father immigrated the family from Deoband to Karachi, Pakistan. Since there was not a madrasah nearby, Usmani's primary education began at home under his parents. He was later enrolled in Darul Uloom Karachi after Mufti Shafi founded the school in 1950. After completing his primary education, he began his formal religious training in the Dars-i Nizami curriculum in 1953. He passed the Fazil-i Arabi with distinction in 1958, and received his Alimiyyah degree with distinction from Darul Uloom Karachi in 1959. He then obtained his Takhassus degree in fiqh and ifta from Darul Uloom Karachi in 1961, earning the title of "Mufti". Usmani continued his education at the University of Karachi, obtaining a Bachelor of Arts in economics and politics in 1964, then a Bachelor of Laws with second-class honours in 1967. In 1970 he obtained a Master of Arts with first-class honours in Arabic language and literature from the University of Punjab.

Teachers

Usmani received teaching licenses to teach hadith from Islamic scholars including Muhammad Shafi, Muhammad Idris Kandhlawi, Qari Muhammad Tayyib, Saleemullah Khan, Rashid Ahmad Ludhianvi, Sahban Mahmud, Zafar Ahmad Usmani, Muhammad Zakariya Kandhalvi, Hasan al-Mahshat, Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghuddah, Abi Al-Faid :id:Muhammad Yasin Al-Fadani|Muhammad Yasin Al-Fadani Ash-Shafi'i, and others.

Islamic Economics

Usmani pioneered the concept of Islamic banking in Pakistan when he established the Meezan Bank. Usmani has authored books in Arabic, Urdu, and English on Islamic topics in addition to articles on Islamic banking and finance published in journals and magazines.
According to The Muslim 500: "Usmani's chief influence comes from his position as a global authority on the issue of Islamic finance."

Awards and honors

He currently teaches Sahih al-Bukhari, fiqh, and Islamic economics at Darul Uloom Karachi and is known for his Islahi Khutbat. He was a key member of a team of scholars which helped declare Ahmadis non-Muslims by Pakistan's National Assembly during the era of former Pakistani president, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, in the 1970s. During the presidency of General Zia ul Haq, he was instrumental in drafting laws pertaining to Hudood, Qisas meaning retaliation in kind or.

Personal Views

Usmani strongly opposes elements of explicit modernity, which he describes as engulfing
the whole world in the tornado of nudity and obscenity, and has provided an excuse for fornication, and more so it has led under thunder claps to the passage of a bill in the British House of Commons to legalize homosexuality. It is in the shadow of the same modernity that Western women are openly displaying banners on the streets demanding legalization of abortion

At a religious conference in 1984, he urged a more "dynamic attitude" towards the practice of ijtihad, arguing there is no shortage of fine minds capable of interpreting the sharia, but warning against the contamination of sharia by Western ideas such as the elimination of hudud penalties such as amputation and stoning.

Current positions held

Positions held

PositionOrganisationFromto
JudgeShariat Appellate Bench, Supreme Court of Pakistan19822002
ChairmanCentre for Islamic Economics, Pakistan1991now
JudgeFederal Shariat Court of Pakistan19801982
MemberSyndicate University of Karachi19851988
MemberBoard of Governors, International Islamic University Islamabad19851989
MemberInternational Institute of Islamic Economics19851988
MemberCouncil of Islamic Ideology19771981
MemberBoard of Trustees International Islamic University, Islamabad20042007
MemberCommission for Islamisation of Economy of Pakistan
Member Shariah BoardBank of Khyber, Pehawar
Member Shariah BoardDow Jones Index, New York
Member Shariah BoardHSBC Amanah Finance Dubai
Member Shariah BoardSwiss Re Takaful, Switzerland
Member Shariah BoardBank Islami
Member Shariah BoardDubai Bank
Member Shariah BoardRobert Fleming Oasis Fund, Luxemburg
Member Shariah BoardAL Bakarah Group Jeddah
Member Shariah BoardABC Investment Bank

Arabic

Books

Articles, essays, and scholarly papers

As contributor

In translation

Urdu

As author

As contributor

English

As author

“Since wealth is the property of God, humanity does not have autonomy in this ownership but through the specific path He has instituted in the Islamic Shari ‘ah.”
“Nothing destroys one’s respect in the hearts of others more than greed.”