Allama Sir Abdullah al-Mamun al-Suhrawardy, Barrister-at-Law (Gray's Inn), M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt. (Oxon), LL.D., Iftakar-ul-Milla, Kt., Commander of the Order of Medjidie

Medjidie

Medjidie or Mejidie is the name of a military and knightly order of the Ottoman Empire. The Order was instituted in 1851 by Sultan Abdülmecid I.-Order of the Medjidie:...

, (1870 – 1935) was an Islamic scholar and academic.

Family

Suhrawardy was married to Sahebzadi Ahmedi Begum (daughter of Sahebzada Mirza Mohamed Ali Nakey) and did not have any children. He was the eldest son of Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy

Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy

Ubaidullah Al Ubaidi Suhrawardy was an educationist and writer, was born in the famous Suhrawardy family of Chitwa in Midnapore, West Bengal.-Marriage and family:...

 and brother of Lt. Col. Dr. Hassan Suhrawardy

Hassan Suhrawardy

Lt. Col. Dr. Hassan Suhrawardy, D.Sc., M.D., D.P.H., F.R.C.S. was a noted surgeon, politician and public servant in India.-Life and family:...

.

Education and life as a student

Suhrawardy was an extraordinarily brilliant student, winning a number of stipends and scholarships throughout his school and college career. He graduated with honours in Arabic, English and Philosophy in 1898, obtaining a first class in his special subjects and standing the first of his year both in the B.A. and M.A. examinations of Calcutta University. He was also the first to obtain a Ph.D. degree from Calcutta University in 1908. While studying for the Bar, he achieved an M.A. degree from the London University and used to add to his slender allowance from India by lecturing on Arabic letters and jurisprudence, subjects to which he contributed in his later writings and teachings much of value and freshness.

Deeply impressed by his contact with the Muslims of the Near East, he founded and was the first secretary of the Pan-Islamic Society of London. He took some part in the expression of Indian Muslim opinion on the Morley-Minto Reforms. On returning to Calcutta to practice at the Bar, he was elected to the reformed Bengal Legislative Council.

Political career

While the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms

Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms

The Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms were reforms introduced by the British Government in India to introduce self-governing institutions gradually to India. The reforms take their name from Edwin Samuel Montagu, the Secretary of State for India during the latter parts of World War I and Lord Chelmsford,...

 were being formulated, Suhrawardy was selected to be a member of the Reforms Franchise Committee

Southborough Franchise Committee

The Southborough Committee, referred to at the time as the Franchise Committee was a one of three British committees which sat in Indian from 1918-1919, including also the Committee on Home Administration and the Feetham Function Committee....

 that toured India under the chairmanship of Lord Southborough. He continued to serve on the enlarged Bengal Legislature and was deputy president from 1923 to 1926. He was then elected to the Indian Legislative Assembly of which he continued to be a member till his death in 1935. He founded therein the Central Muslim Party and the All-India Muslim Legislators Association (formed on the suggestion of Aga Khan III

Aga Khan III

Sir Sultan Muhammed Shah, Aga Khan III, GCSI, GCMG, GCIE, GCVO, PC was the 48th Imam of the Shia Ismaili Muslims. He was one of the founders and the first president of the All-India Muslim League, and served as President of the League of Nations from 1937-38. He was nominated to represent India to...

) and was its joint-secretary from 1920 to 1926. He was for many years secretary of the Indian Muslem Association of Bengal and in 1920 succeeded Sir Muhammad Shafi

Muhammad Shafi

Sir Mian Muhammad Shafi, KCSI, CIE was an Indian Muslim politician. He belonged to the well-known Arain Mian family of Baghbanpura, Lahore. He went to England to study for the Bar in August 1889. He also took active interest in Anjuman-i-Islamiya of London and was elected its President for a term...

 as secretary of the All-India Muslim Association. He also took part in the work of the National Liberal Federation until in 1924 his Islamic zeal led to his acceptance of the presidency of the Khilafat Committee, Calcutta.

Suhrawardy never countenanced civil disobedience or boycott of government and held firmly to the principles of corporate communal expression with which he had been identified. Hence he accepted the nomination of Government, as a member of the Legislative Assembly, to the Indian Central Committee which in 1928-9 cooperated with the Simon Commission

Simon Commission

The Indian Statutory Commission was a group of seven British Members of Parliament that had been dispatched to India in 1927 to study constitutional reform in Britain's most important colonial dependency. It was commonly referred to as the Simon Commission after its chairman, Sir John Simon...

. He took strong exception to what he regarded as the arbitrary conduct of the proceedings by the chairman, Sir C. Sankaran Nair

C. Sankaran Nair

Sir Chettur Sankaran Nair KCIE was the President of the Indian National Congress in 1897 held at Amraoti. Until present he is the only Keralite to hold the post.-Early life and education:...

. A Supplementary Note that he handed in for publication did not appear in the Report, but was officially published (with the omission of some "purple patches" reflecting on the chairman) a few months later.

Writings and academia

His major works include Sayings of Muhammad (1905 with a reprint in 1938), First Steps in Muslim Jurisprudence (1906) and Outlines of the Historical Development of Muslim Law.

He was the Tagore Law Lecturer in 1911 and did an enormous amount of important educational work. He also took a share in local self-government activities in the Tollygunge municipality and the Midnapore district board from 1920 till 1923.

He was knighted in 1931.