Tabligh Movement
1. MAULANA ILYAS
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occupations. Small trifling matters led to prolonged
wars such as the pre-Islamic Arab Bedouins had
engaged in. They were a brave and sturdy people,
but their lack of education and training had come in
the way of their advancing beyond the tribal way of
life. Major Piolet, the Bandobast officer of Alwar, at
the end of the 19th century, writes:
“Meo are half-Hindus in their habits and
customs.”
They had posed a serious threat to the Muslim rule
in the initial Sultanate period, looting and
plundering the city at night. For fear of their attacks,
the gates of the capital were closed at dusk. No one
dared to go out after dark. Sultan Ghyasuddin
Balban in the year 1266 dispatched an expedition
against them in which a great number of them were
put to the sword, but they were never fully
subdued. Even as late as the period of the British
Raj, the government was only partially successful in
crushing them and establishing peace in the area.
In 1921 new problems arose when Arya preachers
resolved to reconvert the Indian Muslims to their
ancestral religion. Thanks to the religious and
