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The Barelvi movement, also known as Ahl al-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah (People of the Prophet's Way and the Community) is a Sunni revivalist movement that generally adheres to the Hanafi and Shafi'i schools of jurisprudence, and Maturidi and Ash'ari schools of theology with hundreds of millions of followers, and it encompasses a variety of Sufi orders, including the Chistis, Qadiris, Suhrawardis and Naqshbandis as well as many other orders of Sufism. They consider themselves to be the continuation of Sunni Islamic orthodoxy before the rise of Salafism and the Deobandi movement.
The Barelvi movement is spread across the globe with millions of followers, thousands of mosques, institutions, and organizations in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom, South Africa and other parts of Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, and the United States.
As of 2000, the movement had around 200 million followers globally but mainly located in Pakistan and India.[1]
The movement claim to revive the Sunnah as embodied in the Qur’an, literature of traditions (hadith) and the way of the scholars, as the people had lapsed from the Prophetic traditions. Consequently, scholars took the duty of reminding Muslims go back to the ‘ideal’ way of Islam. The movement drew inspiration from the Sunni doctrines of Shah Abdur Rahim (1644-1719) founder of Madrasah-i Rahimiyah and one of the compiler of Fatawa-e-Alamgiri. Shah Abdur Rahim is father of Shah Waliullah Dehlawi. The movement also drew inspiration from Shah Abdul Aziz Muhaddith Dehlavi (1746 –1824) and Fazl-e-Haq Khairabadi (1796–1861) founder of the Khairabad School. Fazle Haq Khairabadi Islamic scholar and leader of 1857 rebellion issued fatwas against Wahabi Ismail Dehlvi for his doctrine of God's alleged ability to lie (imkan-i kizb) from Delhi in 1825. Ismail is considered as an intellectual ancestor of Deobandis.
The movement emphasizes personal devotion to and oneness of God i.e. tawhid and the finality of prophethood, adherence to sharia and in fiqh following the four schools, following the Ilm al-Kalam and Sufi practices such as veneration of and seeking help from saints among other things associated with Sufism. The movement defines itself as the most authentic representative of Sunnī Islam, Ahl-i-Sunnat wa-al-Jamāʿat (The people who adhere to the Prophetic Tradition and preserve the unity of the community).
Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi (1856–1921) who was a Sunni Sufi scholar and reformer in north India wrote extensively, including the Fatawa-i Razawiyya, in defense of Muhammad and popular Sufi practices and became the leader of a movement called Ahl i Sunnat wa al Jamàat.
- ^ Bowker, John (2000). The concise Oxford dictionary of world religions. Oxford paperback reference (Abridged and updated ed. [of the "Oxford dictionary of world religions"] ed.). Oxford: Oxford University press. ISBN 978-0-19-280094-7.
Indian and Pakistani school of Muslim thought with over 200 million followers.