Encyclopedia of Islam

Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmad

---

of what is now Afghanistan and Baluchistan, he 

set out for the Punjab, where the population was 

a mixture of Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs. There 

he attempted to displace the local Sikh governor, 

Sher Singh (d. 1843), and after several battles and 

skirmishes he was killed at Balakot (near Kash-

mir) in 1831. His movement was put into disarray, 

but it reorganized itself and became a nonjihadist 

reform movement known as the Path of Muham-

mad, based in Patna. Sayyid Ahmad is still remem-

bered by many Pakistani and Indian Muslims as a 

martyr (shahid), and his shrine still stands in the 

town of Balakot, Pakistan, along with memorials 

to those who died in battle with him.

The movement launched by Sayyid Ahmad 

in the early 19th century is distinct from a 

movement the emerged later in the 1880s called 

the Barelwi Movement, under the leadership of 

Ahmad Riza Khan (1856–1921) of Barelwi, a 

scholar of the 

sharia

. Members of this movement 

strongly believed that they were the Indian heirs 

of Muhammad and his companions in m

edina

,

and they opposed the reformist ideas of s

ayyid

a

hmad

  k

han

 (d. 1898) and a

bU

 

al

-k

alam

  a

zad

(d. 1958). Instead they espoused a combination of 

Sufi devotionalism and pilgrimage to saint shrines 

with a reformist attitude toward the 

sharia

. Their 

understanding of Islam was also at odds with that 

of Sayyid Ahmad’s “Wahhabi” movement and the 

conservative school based in d

eoband

. Although 

the Barelwi Movement began in rural areas, it has 

since gained a strong following among educated 

Muslims in urban areas of India and Pakistan.

See also h

indUism

 

and

 i

slam

; m

Ughal

 

dynasty

; 

reneWal

 

and

 

reForm

 

movements

; W

ahhabism

.