Abdul Awwal Jaunpuri

ʿAbd al-Awwal Jaunpūrī (Urdu: عبد الاول جونپوری, Bengali: আব্দুল আউয়াল জৌনপুরী; 1867 – 18 June 1921) was an Indian Muslim scholar, religious preacher, educationist, poet and author.

Described by Muhammad Mojlum Khan as one of the "most gifted and outstanding" of Karamat Ali Jaunpuri's many children,[1] he displayed an important role leading his father's founded Taiyuni reformist movement in Bengal.

He belonged to an Indian Muslim family that traced their ancestry to the Arab tribe of Quraysh, with Jaunpuri being a 36th-generation direct descendant of Abu Bakr, the first Rashidun caliph.

After five years in Lucknow, he moved to Calcutta at the suggestion of the Bengali scholar Lutfur Rahman Burdwani.

Among his teachers in Mecca were Rahmatullah Kairanawi, Muhammad Noor and Abdullah bin Sayyid Husayn al-Makki.

He also studied fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), hadith, tafsir (Qur'anic exegesis) under Abdul Haq Allahabadi, who was one of his father's disciples based in Mecca.

Like the rest of his family, he began to propagate Islamic teachings which included renouncing shirk (idolatry) and bid'ah (religious innovations) by means of public speeches.

[2] As one of the main leaders of the pacifist Taiyuni movement, he received awards in recognition of his services from the local Nawabs of Dhaka and the ruling British Raj.

[8] He began touring eastern Bengal, visiting places such as Mymensingh, Chandpur, Laksam and Faridpur.

For the first time in history, there began a union between the Faraizis and Taiyunis, as a result of Naya Miyan pledging bay'ah to Abdul Awwal Jaunpuri.