Idris Kandhlawi

Sheikh al-Hadith Mawlānā Idris Kandhlawi
ادریس کاندھلوی
Personal details
Born	(1899-08-20)20 August 1899 Bhopal, Bhopal State
Died	28 July 1974(1974-07-28) (aged 74) Lahore, Pakistan
Alma mater	Mazahir Uloom Darul Uloom Deoband
Personal
Denomination	Sunni
Jurisprudence	Hanafi
Movement	Deobandi
Main interest(s)	Hadith studies Quranic studies
Notable work(s)	Maarif al-Quran Al-Taleeq al-Sabeeh Seerat-e Mustafa
Teachers	Ashraf Ali Thanwi Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri Anwar Shah Kashmiri Shabbir Ahmad Usmani

Idris Kandhlawi (Urdu: ادریس کاندھلوی; 20 August 1899 – 28 July 1974) was a Pakistani Sunni scholar during the mid-twentieth century, widely recognized for his contributions to various fields of Islamic studies, including hadith, Quranic studies, Islamic jurisprudence, Prophetic biography, and theology. Holding the titles of Sheikh al-Hadith and Sheikh al-Tafsir, he traced his lineage to Abu Bakr on his father's side and Umar on his mother's side. He studied in Thana Bhawan under Ashraf Ali Thanwi. He studied hadith, first at Mazahir Uloom under Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri, and later at Darul Uloom Deoband under Anwar Shah Kashmiri. He started his professional career at Madrasa Aminia and later went to Darul Uloom Deoband. In 1929 he took a position in Hyderabad State, where he had access to the Asafia Library. This experience enabled him to produce a five-volume Arabic commentary on Mishkat al-Masabih titled Al-Taleeq al-Sabeeh, of which the first four volumes were published in Damascus. His scholarly work garnered recognition in the Arab world. He later assumed the roles of Sheikh al-Tafsir at Darul Uloom Deoband and Sheikh al-Hadith wa al-Tafsir at Jamia Ashrafia. In addition, he served as the Chancellor of Islamia University of Bahawalpur during its tenure as Jamia Abbasia.

He actively engaged in politics and worked in the Pakistan Movement as one of the top members of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam. Following the partition of India, he migrated to Pakistan. He wrote over a hundred works, including an eight-volume Quran commentary called Maarif al-Quran, which aimed to counter the influence of Western-oriented exegesis trends in South Asia. His approach to writing this Quran commentary drew from the methodology of Bayan al-Quran. He also wrote a biography in Urdu of Muhammad, called Seerat-e Mustafa. The initial three volumes were printed in 1941, with the final volume, designed as a supplement, published in Deoband in 1966. He also wrote many works to refute Christianity and Qadianism.