Shibli Nomani

Shibli Nomani (4 June 1857 – 18 November 1914) was an Islamic scholar, poet, philosopher, historian, educational thinker, author, orator, reformer and critic of orientalists from Indian subcontinent during the British Raj. He is regarded as the father of Urdu historiography. He was also proficient in Arabic and Persian languages. Shibli was associated with two influential movements in the region, the Aligarh and the Nadwa movements. As a supporter of the Deobandi school, he believed that English language and European sciences should be incorporated into the education system. Shibli wrote several biographies of Muslim heroes, convinced that Muslims of his time could learn valuable lessons from the past. His synthesis of past and modern ideas contributed significantly to Islamic literature produced in Urdu between 1910 and 1935. Shibli established the Darul Musannefin Shibli Academy in 1914 to promote Islamic scholarship and also founded the Shibli National College in 1883. Although he collected much material on the life of Prophet Muhammad, he could only complete the first two volumes of the planned work, Sirat al-Nabi. His disciple, Sulaiman Nadvi, added to this material and wrote the remaining five volumes after Shibli's death.