Muhammad Shafi Deobandi

Who was Muhammad Shafi Deobandi?

Muḥammad Shafī‘ ibn Muḥammad Yāsīn ‘Us̱mānī Deobandī, often referred to as Mufti Muhammad Shafi, was a South Asian Sunni Islamic scholar of the Deobandi school of Islamic thought. A Hanafi jurist and mufti, he was also an authority on shari'ah, hadith, tafsir, and tasawwuf. Born in Deoband, British India, he graduated in 1917 from Darul Uloom Deoband, where he later taught hadith and held the post of Chief Mufti. He resigned from the school in 1943 to devote his time to the Pakistan Movement. After the partition of India he moved to Pakistan, where he established Darul Uloom Karachi in 1951. He is regarded as the first Grand Mufti of Pakistan. Of his written works, his best-known is Ma'ariful Qur'an, a tafsir of the Qur'an.