He issued an early religious edict in favour of doing military jihad against British colonialism during 1857 and inspired various others to participate in the 1857 rebellion.
He wrote Tahqeeq al-Fatwa Fi Abtal al-Taghwa in refutation of Ismail Dehlvi's Taqwiyat al-Iman and authored books such as al-Thawra al-Hindiyya.
[6] In 1825, Khairabadi issued fatwas against Ismail Dehlvi for his doctrine of God's alleged ability to lie (Imkan al-Kidhb).
[8] Darul Uloom Deoband, founder Rashid Ahmad Gangohi later accepted Dehlvi's doctrines of Imkan al-Kidhb by stating that God has the ability to lie.
[11][12] As the Indians started to struggle against British occupation, Khairabadi conducted several private meetings with the Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, which continued until May 1857.
On June 26, 1857, when General Bakht Khan along with his army of 14000, reached Delhi from Bareilly, Khairabadi gave a Friday sermon, attended by a plethora of Muslim scholars and issued a religious edict supporting jihad against the colonial government.
The fatwa was signed by Sadruddin Azurda, Abdul Qadir, Faizullah Dehalvi, Faiz Ahmed Badayuni, Wazir Khan, and Syed Mubarak Shah Rampuri.
[13][14] Subsequently, the Britishers deployed an army of some 90,000 around Delhi to protect its interests and to curb spread of jihad, following the issuance of Khairabadi's edict.
[20] The authorities considered him "extraordinary intelligence and acumen who should be reckoned as the most dangerous threat to the British presence in India, and therefore must be evicted from the Indian mainland.
He was sentenced to life in prison in Kalapani (Cellular Jail) on Andaman Island, and his property was confiscated by the judicial commissioner of Awadh court.
[23][1] He stayed for 22 months in captivity at Andaman, Allama wrote a number of eyewitness accounts in the form of verses in Arabic (Qaseeda), apart from a book al-Thawra al-Hindiyya which is an analysis of the war and events of 1857.