Maulana Sayyid Abul Hasan Ali Nadwi, popularly known as Ali Miyan, was widely honored as a scholar of Qur'anic commentary and other traditional knowledge. He was also a biographer and historian. As a distinguished leader, he focused his attention on the political, educational, and social life of Muslims. He wrote a number of books in Urdu and Arabic, many of which have been translated into English and other languages.
Ali Miyan was born in Rae Bareli in 1914. His father was an eminent scholar named Abd al-Hayy Hasani. From his student days, he was associated with the Nadwat al Ulama, an institution founded to bridge the gap between the Western and the classically educated elites and to promote interaction with the Arab world, in Lucknow. Thereby it was possible to cultivate a high standard of Arabic learning.
One significant dimension of Ali Miyan's scholarly work was to help shape a historical heritage of Muslim political, intellectual, and spiritual leadership by writing histories and biographies of the great figures of the Indian Muslim tradition. That included the histories of leaders from Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi in the l7th century to the leaders of the contemporary Tablighi Jamacat movement. He started a close connection with the Tabligh movement in 1939, and he supported this movement through his writings and also by his own participation in Dawa and in Nafwat.
