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Moulavi widely known as
Chembarika Quazi, was a Muslim scholar hailing from the Chembirika, a
village in Kasaragod and active member of Samastha Kerala Jamiyathul Ulama. He was well known
for his special command in astronomy and mathematics. He championed for the
progress of Muslims and laid foundation for Jamiya Sadiya (Deli, Kasaragod) and
Malabar Islamic Complex[2] (Chattengal, Kasaragod). He writes down many valuable
oeuvres in astronomy and Islamic jurisprudence and established a time table for
the prayer time ( Namaz time). He served as Qazi for about 100 Mahals (localities) and
concentrated his work based on Mangalore.
He was appointed as the Qazi of Mangalore province after the
demise of late Qazi Kota Abdul Khader Musliyar. He championed for the communal harmony in Karnataka.
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Born in 1933 into a famous scholarly family in the Chembarikka
village of Kasargod, Qazi got
his initial education from his father Muhammad Kunchi Musliyar bin Abdullah
al-Jamhari, a verily respected scholar whose abode worked as a traditional
court and a spiritual refuge for seekers. Muhammad Kunchi Musliyar taught
various branches of Islamic knowledge at the native mosque for 25 years, and
acted as the Qazi of several adjoining villages, called Mahallu. When he died
in 1973, CM Abdullah Maulvi was unanimously asked to inherit his father. By
that time he had earned sound knowledge, maturity and insights needed to keep
the scholarly heritage of the family.
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While studying religious subjects from his father, Qazi
continued schooling at the Talangara Muslim High School and completed the SSLC. Along with Arabic and local language of Malayalam, he learned Urdu and English languages and became well-versed in all the four languages.
He frequently reminded the importance of learning various languages, saying it
is a door to the wider world. After SSLC, he continued his education in the
traditional mosque colleges (known as Palli Dars) at various places in Kerala.
He completed the Maulvi Fadhil Baqawi course in 1962 from the famous Baqiyat
al-Swalihat Arabic College, Vellore, Tamil Nadu, a major centre of higher Islamic learning in
South India established in 1882. Soon after completing his official religious
education he started his teaching career and served as chief Mudarris at
different mosque-colleges until he settled in Chembarikka following his
father’s death.
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An overview of Kerala Muslim history in the 20th century shows
the emergence of various religious organizations with both traditionalist and
modernist thoughts and philosophies, and their unparalleled activism in setting
up religious, educational, social and cultural institutions. Most of the
brilliant scholars and intellectuals spent their lifetime in unending social
work and creative activities. It is said that due to increased social activism
and enhanced focus on the teaching as well as propagation field, the Ulama of Kerala, especially in the 20th century, gave less
attention to the field of writing and publication. Many of the brilliant and
visionary scholars of the century left no works behind them, despite having
possessed qualified knowledge in various branches of Islamic sciences.
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However, Qazi Abdulla Maulvi was a different personality. Though
he played the active roles of an activist and multi-tasked leader by founding
various educational and other institutions and dealing with the social and
religious issues of thousands of people in hundreds of Muslim localities, he
found time for writing and exploring new horizons of knowledge. He was a
prolific writer who authored some ten noted books on various areas of knowledge
in different languages. A great scholar of Islam, Qazi wrote books, treatises
and articles on Hadees, Fiqh, history, genealogy, literature, and even
showed his literary skill writing down a stunning poem in the locally developed
but rich-in-resource Arabic-Malayalam language. He also proved his enormous
linguistic ability by translating various literatures to and from Arabic, Urdu,
English and Malayalam languages. His translation into poetic Arabic of some of
Allama Iqbal’s Urdu verses is worth mentioning. The language is stunning and
the translation can be read with full sense of reading its original verses in
Urdu.
· Expert in Astronomy, Mathematics and Qibla Sciences
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Qazi CM Abdullah Maulvi was an expert of rational or
intellectual sciences. He showed amazing interest in exploring comparatively
less beaten tracks of astronomy, mathematics and Qibla sciences. Having good
knowledge of both classical Arabic and modern English he simultaneously studied
traditional Arabic texts in these subjects and the modern English works in the
field, making comparative analysis and successful reconciliation between the
traditional and modern. He had the habit of observing the celestial objects and
the movements of stars in the night. His ability to designate the exact places
for mosques and houses was par excellence. He used to prepare timetables of
Islamic prayers and of sunrise and sunset through his own explorations, and
kept a good understanding of even minute time-differences in various places of
Kerala and Karnataka. He even employed latest technologies like Google map and
Google earth to designate places and explore its time differences. In the
annually-published calendar of his institute Malabar Islamic Complex, he
included many of his discoveries regarding prayer timings and moon sights,
specifically mentioning certain dates of each month in which there are chances
of moon-sighting and in which there is no need to even watch for it.
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His office in the Malabar Islamic Complex was in fact a
laboratory of an astronomer. There, he kept various instruments used for
astronomic explorations including one circular instrument called Dairatul
Hindiyya, and he had built a small dais in front of the ground of the Islamic
college building, in a place where the sunrays fall throughout the day. This
dais or podium was the Centre of all his astronomical explorations. In the days
meant for explorations he will reach in the college campus very early to start
his experiments. As the sun moves from east to west he would watch its shadows
and draw various lines accordingly, with the spirit of a true scientist seeking
new discoveries. For many of his students and colleagues who showed less
interest in such difficult subjects like astronomy, trigonometry and logarithm,
the sight of a traditional religious scholar with long beard, white turban and
conventional Ulama dress experimenting celestial truths in the sun using scale
and other instruments was an amazing scene. During his reading and revising
sessions at his room he can be seen dialoging with quality works from different
areas of knowledge like modern astronomy,mathematics, traditional Ilmul Falak
(astronomy) and Hisab (mathematics) as well as texts of Islamic jurisprudence that
explain about moon-sighting, qibla directions and prayer timings.
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Qazi Abdullah Maulvi was in an attempt to revive a disappearing
area of knowledge that has seen tremendous contributions by Muslim scholars,
whose brilliant works were widely taught and commented upon at various Islamic
higher learning centers. Generally being part of the rational sciences, called
ma’qulat or al-‘ulum al-‘aqliyya, Hisab (mathematics) and ‘ilmul falak
(astronomy) were included in the madrasa syllabus with an added objective of
enabling scholars in preparing charts of prayer times, moon-sighting, seasonal
changes, designating qibla direction of the mosques and related things.
Mathematics and astronomy, along with subjects like logic, philosophy and
Metaphysics, were also taught in the madrasas in order to enhance the thinking
and reasoning capacity of the upcoming religious scholars. Khulasatu'l-Hisab,
Euclid, Tashrihu'l-Aflak, Chaghmini, risalatul maradiniya, etc. were key texts
used in teaching astronomy and mathematics. With the introduction of secular
western education and the ensuing dichotomy of Islamic education into religious
and material, the Islamic higher learning centers were effectively alienated
from the modern science and technology. Though many of the traditional Islamic
schools continued teaching the texts for hisab, astronomy and Qibla science, it
never incorporated or accommodated to these subjects the latest discoveries and
developments emerged in the west. While some rare brilliant minds kept their
interest for these subjects burning, many other learned these for the sake of
learning.
· Writing on science subjects
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Qazi C.M. Abdullah Maulvi was one among the rare breed of
astronomy specialists among Kerala Muslim scholars. However, he outshined others
in the group with his yearning to grasp all modern developments in the field.
He bought latest journals and magazines published by authorities like NASA, thoughtfully read about latest discoveries and explorations,
and enthusiastically discussed it with his students and colleagues. One of his
junior colleagues remembers the smile and pleasure of a true scientist he saw
in the face of Qazi when he explained for them the news about dismissal of Pluto from the planet family around the Sun, after reading a latest NASA journal about it. He wrote plenty of quality articles in various
magazines and souvenirs about astronomy, qibla directions and about seasonal,
regional and geographical differences in defining timings of prayers,
moon-sighting, sunset and sunrise.
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He saw the general indifference towards this field among both
religious and secular students, thanks to the tough and boring nature of the
subjects to most of the people. But he continued his bids, now by writing a
small treatise in Arabic on logarithms and trigonometry, aimed at giving an
easy entry for religious students to modern mathematics with which they can
easily comprehend the old texts in the light of modern terminologies. The book
is called Tazweedul fikri wal himam fi tabyeeni nnisab wallogarithem (Provision
for thought and resolve in explaining ratio and logarithm). Introducing this
book, he said that it was written for an easy opening to the world of difficult
and ambiguous mathematics. His introductory book on astronomy is ‘ilmul falak
‘ala dhaui ‘ilmil hadees (Astronomy on light of modern science). Incorporating
the modern mathematics and astronomy into the traditional astronomy and qibla
science he wrote his another work called Risala fi istikhraju auqati ssalati wa
sumutul qibla ‘ala tariqi hisabi logarithm (Treatise on extracting prayer
timings and qibla directions using logarithm mathematics).[3]
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Then come the works in English and Arabic describing the result
of his lifelong experiments. The declination of the commonly used magnetic
compass in designating the qibla direction always troubled his mind. The
deficiency of the magnetic compass in clearly designating the exact north, thus
its relative weakness in locating the exact qibla direction, induced him to
make all his experiments. He developed a new method for exact calculation using
logarithm and trigonometry. The above-mentioned treatise was a first step in
this regard.
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Then to make his discovery known to more people he wrote a quality
work in English named ‘Magnetic Compass and Its Declination from Standard
Directions’. In its introduction he said, “Most of the people do not care to
check the Magnetic Compass they use for making out various points of the
basement of their structures for Homes or Mosques where accurate directions of
cardinal points should be known. They do not consider the value of the magnetic
variation of the place at all while using a magnetic Compass. This aspect was
the inducement for the author for endeavor. I have tried, in very simple term
in the following pages a brief history of magnetic Compass and clear
description of declination of the magnetic needle from the true direction
including the method by which to find out the standard direction (cardinal
points). This book not only explains the direction and the declination but also
guides you to achieve them from their sources.” He later translated this work
into Arabic as ‘Al-Buswilatul Mu’antisiyya wa inhirafuha ‘anil jihatil
aswliyya’.
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He has reportedly written some other works in this field, but
decided not to publish them fearing that their contents would be tough for
common people to understand. In his final days, he had mentioned to his
well-wishers about the plan of a work on geography. He had the habit of
observing stars in certain nights. However, it is painful that his lifelong
dedication for exploring astronomy and unusual interest in synthesizing the
contributions of medieval Muslim scholars and those of modern astronomy and
mathematics went unnoticed until his death. As his fields of activities
remained with the common people and his engagements as a religious scholar,
teacher and qazi kept him busy always, the scientific achievements of this
traditional Islamic scholar got no entry into academic seminars or journals.
