Shah Sultan Ahmad was born on 26 June 1914, to a Bengali Muslim family in the village of Dharmapur, located under the Fatikchhari subdivision of the Bengal Province's Chittagong District.[1] His father, Shah Fazlur Rahman, worked in Rangoon, British Burma and his mother, Umdah Khatun, was a housewife. His grandfather's great-grandfather, Akbar Shah, migrated from Arabia to Bengal via Afghanistan for dawah and permanently settled there. Among Fazlur Rahman's children, it was only him that did not die during childhood. When he was roughly two and a half years old, his mother died as a result of a cholera outbreak.[2][3]
Education
Sultan Ahmad's education began at a local maktab ran by Ubaydul Haq Mianji. When he reached the age of five, he joined the Garzania Primary School. After his father's instruction, he later joined the Himayah al-Islam Madrasa in Nanupur Kalu Munshirhat. There he began studying from Yazdaham to Jamate Shashum under the likes of Lal Miyan,[1] Obaydul Hoque and Muhammad Faizullah.[4]
During his education in Deoband, Nanupuri spent seven years under Hussain Ahmad Madani, pledging bay'ah to Madani on 18 November 1944. However, after the Partition of India in 1947, Nanupuri was unable to maintain a close relationship with Madani, and could not meet with Ashraf Ali Thanwi either as he was ill. Madani responded to Nanupuri in a letter giving him permission to master tasawuuf under a different Sufi scholar. Nanupuri then became a murid of Azizul Haq of Patiya, and received khilafah (spiritual succession) from him after 15 years.[8]
Nanupuri first completed Hajj with his pir, Azizul Haq. In 1967, a businessman named Niamat Ali Sawdagar funded Nanupuri for Hajj. His third hajj took place in 1970, alongside Mohammed Younus and Abdur Rahman Chatgami. His fourth and last hajj was in 1991, alongside Mufti Said Ahmad (founder of Jamia Sultania Lalpol) and Afsar Ahmad (Qari of Nanupur Madrasa).[4]
On 21 January 1945, Nanupuri married Momena Khatun, the first daughter of Munshi Abdul Khaliq. They had four sons and six daughters, although two sons died at an early stage. His son, Imdadullah Nanupuri, is also an Islamic scholar and the principal of Al-Jamiah Al-Islamiyyah Bayt al-Huda.[9]
Nanupuri's leading khalifah (spiritual successor) Said Ahmad established a madrasa in Feni named after him as Al-Jamiah al-Islamiyyah as-Sultaniyyah. He also wrote a biography on his teacher titled "Shah Sultan Ahmad Nanupuri's life and teachings" which was published by the Hakimul Ulama Foundation Bangladesh.[8]Shah Ahmad Ghani also wrote a biography on Nanupuri, and Abdul Majid Muhajir-e-Makki wrote an eleven-volume Urdu biography titled "Marif-e-Sultan". Abdus Salam Chatgami later edited the work and published it in two volumes.[10][11] His disciples have founded numerous institutions and organisations in his name such as the Allama Shah Sultan Ahmad Foundation Bangladesh, and his speeches have been collected and published. In 2018, Al-Jamiah Al-Islamiyyah Bayt al-Huda began publishing a seasonal magazine named after him as the Samayiki As-Sultan.[9] Among his other biographies are:
Hayat-e-Nanupuri Rah. (1999) - Professor Munawwar
Nanupuri Rah. Er Jibon O Dorshon (2000) - Imdadullah Nanupuri
Fuyuz-e-Sultani (2005) - Mawlana Rafiq
Kemon Chilen Nanupuri (2008) - Mahmudul Hasan
Mawayez-e-Sultan (2008) - Mufti Moinuddin (Chief Mufti of Basundhara Madrasa)
Malfuzat-e-Nanupuri
References
^ abal-Kumillai, Muhammad Hifzur Rahman (2018). "العالم الرباني الداعية الكبير المحدث الشيخ سلطان أحمد بن الشيخ فضل الرحمن النانوفوري" [al-ʿĀlim ar-Rabbānī, the great propagator, the Muhaddith, the Shaykh Sulṭān Aḥmad ibn Faḍl ar-Raḥmān al-Nānūfūrī]. كتاب البدور المضية في تراجم الحنفية (in Arabic). Cairo, Egypt: Dar al-Salih.
^ abcdIslam, Aminul; Islam, Samar (2014). বাংলার শত আলেমের জীবনকথা [Biographies of hundreds of Bengali scholars] (in Bengali). Dhaka-1100: Book House. pp. 109–113.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
^ abAhmadullah, Hafez; Qadir, Ridwanul (2018). মাশায়েখে চাটগাম [Mashayekh-e Chatgam] (in Bengali). Dhaka: Ahmad Publication. pp. 162–185. ISBN978-984-92106-4-1.
^Nizampuri, Ashraf Ali (2013). "রাহবারে তরীকত মাওলানা সুলতান আহমদ নানুপুরী রহ.". দ্যা হান্ড্রেড (বাংলা মায়ের একশ কৃতিসন্তান) (in Bengali) (1 ed.). Hathazari: Salman Prakashani. pp. 362–364. ISBN978-112009250-2.
^ abAhmad, Said. শায়খুল আরব ওয়াল আজম, কুতুবুল আলম আল্লামা শাহ সুলতান আহমদ নানুপুরী রহ. এর জীবন ও আদর্শ (in Bengali). Lalpol, Feni, Bangladesh: Hakimul Olama Foundation.
^ ab"আল্লামা শাহ সুলতান আহমদ নানুপুরী রহ. এর স্বরণে সাময়িকী". As-Sultan (in Bengali). Nanupur: As-Sultan Kafela. November 2018.
^Ghani, Shah Ahmad. আল্লামা শাহ সুলতান আহমদ নানুপুরী রহ. এর জীবন ও অবদান. Nanupur: Allama Shah Sultan Ahmad Foundation Bangladesh.