Obituary: Eldest Scholar in the UK passes away making him the oldest Muslim scholar in the UK

إنا لله وإنا إليه راجعون ولا حول ولا قوه الا بالله العلي العظيم The extremely pious and most senior scholar of England, Maulana Ismail b. Ibrahim al-Varachia al-Naqshbandi a.k.a. Maulana Ismail Kankaria has passed in to the mercy of Allah in the early hours of Friday morning March 2, 2018, corresponding to 14 Jumada al-Akhira 1439. He was 96 years old making him the oldest Muslim scholar in the UK. Our Beloved (salahu alayhi wasalam) said in a Hadith that can be found in the two most authentic sources of hadith; Sahih al-Bukhari & Sahih Muslim: إن الله لا يقبض العلم انتزاعا ينتزعه من العباد، ولكن يقبض العلم بقبض العلماء، حتى إذا لم يبق عالما، اتخذ الناس رؤوسا جهالا، فسئلوا، فأفتوا بغير علم، فضلوا وأضلوا. “Indeed, Allah does not take away knowledge by snatching it from the people, but He takes away knowledge by taking away the scholars, until there remains no scholar and the people take the ignorant as their leaders. Then they are asked and give religious judgments without knowledge, they go astray and cause others to go astray.” The honourable Shaikh belonged to a rare class of senior scholars such as Maulana Qasim Sema (South Africa, June 2007), Maulana Naseer Ahmed Khan (India, February 2010), Maulana Ahmed Ali Surati (England, March 2011), Maulana Abdul Qayyum al-Haruni (England August 2016) and others who were blessed with long lives and had studied with the most senior scholar of his time, Shaikh Abdur Rahman al-Amrohi (Baba Amrohi) (ra) After his initial studies in his home town of Varacha in Gujrat India, he was admitted to study at the prestigious Islamic seminary of Dhabel which had seen such luminaries Anwar Shah Kashmiri, Yusuf al-Binnori, Badr Aalam al-Meerthi, Shabbir Ahmed al-Uthmani, and Abdur Rahman al-Amrohi. He informed me that he had studied Tafseer al-Jalalayn and a few hadith of Sahih al-Bukhari with Shaikh Abdur Rahman al-Amrohi the last remaining student of Shaikh Mohammed Qasim al-Nanotwi (ra). He had also studied the entire collection of Bukhari with the renowned Muhaddith and author of Fath al-Mulhim the exegesis of Sahih Muslim, Shaikh Shabbir Ahmed al-Uthmani (ra) In the Tarikh of Dhabel authored by the erudite muhaddith of South Africa, Shaikhuna Fadlur Rahman al-Azami (ha), one can find Shaikh... For the rest of the article visit: https://goo.gl/c63grn