Sanaullah Amritsari


Abul Wafa Sana'ullah Amritsari was a British Indian, later Pakistani, Muslim scholar and a leading figure within the Ahl-i Hadith movement who was active in the Punjabi city of Amritsar. He was also a major antagonist of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad and the early Ahmadiyya movement. Sanaullah Amritsari served as the general secretary of Markazi Jamiat Ahle Hadith Hind from 1906 to 1947 and was the editor of the Ahl-e-Hadees magazine. Born into a family of Kashmiri descent, he moved to Pakistan at the Partition, losing his son in the process, and himself dying in Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan, in 1948, after suffering from a stroke.

Biography

Amritsari was born in Amritsar, Punjab, on 12 June 1868. He studied primary classes under Ahmadullah Amritsari and Hadith from Abdul Mannan Wazirabadi. He joined Darul Uloom Deoband in 1890 where he studied logic, philosophy and Fiqh.
His teachers include Mahmud Hasan Deobandi and Ahmad Hasan Kanpuri. He established Ahl-e-Hadith Press in 1903 and published a weekly journal Ahl-e-Hadith which continued for about 44 years. Amritsari also studied Hadith under the Ahl-e-Hadith scholar Sayyid Nazir Husain Dehlvi.
Amritsari wrote pamphlets and books mostly in the refutation of Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Syed Mehboob Rizwi has mentioned Tafsir al-Quran be-Kalam al-Rahman, Tafsir-e-Sanai and Taqabul-e-Salasa as his important works. Amritsari was also among the founding figures of Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind and had a rank of major general in Junud-e-Rabbania. He was President of Anjuman Ahl-e-Hadith Punab.
Amritsari migrated to Gujranwala, Pakistan after Partition of India in 1947 and died on15 March 1948 in Sargodha.

Legacy