Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi


Saeed Ahmad Akbarabadi was an Indian Sunni Islamic scholar, Urdu-language author, and former dean of the Faculty of Theology, Aligarh Muslim University.

Birth and education

Saeed Akbarabadi was born in the colonial Indian city of Agra in 1908. He studied his primary classes at home, then he studied in Madrasa Shahi, Moradabad, and later graduated from the Darul Uloom Deoband. There he studied under Anwar Shah Kashmiri, Shabbir Ahmad Usmani and Ibrahim Balyawi. He then undertook specialist courses at Oriental College, Lahore. During the period, Akbarabadi was appointed as a teacher of oriental languages in Madrasa-e-Aaliya, Fatehpuri. He gained a Master of Arts degree in Arabic from St. Stephen's College, Delhi.

Career

After completing studies at Oriental College, Lahore, Akbarabadi taught at Jamia Islamia Talimuddin, Dabhel. He then taught oriental languages in Madrassa-e-Aalia, Fatehpuri. After completing his M.A from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, he became a lecturer in the same college. In the meantime Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq became his student. In 1949, he became Principal of the Madrassa-e-Aliya, Calcutta.
In 1958, Akbarabadi became the Dean of the Faculty of Theology in the Aligarh Muslim University. He transformed a weak faculty and introduced graduate teaching and a doctoral programme. He supervised his first doctoral thesis, on Anwar Shah Kashmiri, which was later published by Aligarh Muslim University in 1974.
During 1962 and 1963, Akbarabadi was a Visiting Professor in the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Canada. After his retirement from AMU in 1972, he joined an Islamic institute of Hamdard in Tughlaqabad for four years.
After that, he was a Visiting Professor at the University of Calicut and then at Aligarh Muslim University. Darul Uloom Deoband then made him Director of its new research department, Shaikhul Hind Academy, a post he held from 25 December 1982 until his death on 24 May 1985.

Positions held

Akbarabadi’s roles included:
Studies of Akbarabadi include: