Abdul Majid Daryabadi

Abdul Majid Daryabadi (16 March 1892 – 6 January 1977) was an influential Islamic scholar, philosopher, writer, critic, researcher, journalist, and Quranic exegete active in the Indian subcontinent during the 20th century. He was deeply concerned with modernism, comparative religion, and orientalism in India.

In his early life, Daryabadi identified as a "rationalist" and distanced himself from religion for nearly nine years. However, he later re-evaluated his beliefs and became a devout Muslim. He was closely associated with the Khilafat Movement and was actively involved with prestigious institutions such as the Royal Asiatic Society, Aligarh Muslim University, Nadwatul Ulama, and the Darul Musannefin Shibli Academy. His father, Abdul Qadir, was a follower of the Qadiriyya Sufi Order. Daryabadi's mother was also of Qidwai descent, and her father was the elder brother of Mufti Mazhar Karim Qudwai (Abdul Majid's paternal grandfather), making Daryabadi's parents cousins.

Daryabadi's maternal grandfather resided in Lucknow, which became a second home for him, as his father had also been born there. Abdul Majid was the youngest of five siblings. In his autobiography, Aap Biti, he noted that only one elder brother, Abdul Majid (d. 1951), and one elder sister, Zarifunnisa (later known as Bibi Sakina, d. 1945), were still alive during his later years. In 1902, he began formal schooling at Sitapur High School, where he studied until 1908. In 2008 Md. Shams Alam, a research scholar from the Department of Arabic, Persian, and Urdu of University of Madras, published a research paper on Daryabadi entitled "Moulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi ki ilmi wa adabi khidmath" .

On 15 January 2005, the Shah Waliullah Institute, Delhi, and National Council for the Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL) jointly organised a national seminar on the life and services of Daryabadi at Rajinder Bhawan, New Delhi. Akhlaqur Rahman Kidwai, governor of Haryana presided over the seminar. Participants presented 17 scholarly papers on different aspects of his life and services. On 20 March 2022, the AMU Old Boys Association and the Sidq Foundation jointly organised a seminar named "Urdu Journalism & Maulana Abdul Majid Daryabadi" at the Islamic Centre of India, Aishbagh, Lucknow.