Rahmatullah Kairanawi

Rahmatullah Kairanawi al-Hindi (; 1818–1891) was a Sunni Muslim scholar and author who is best known for his work, Izhar ul-Haqq.

Early life and education Kairanawi was born in Kairana, in Muzaffarnagar, in 1818. He is a descendant of the third Caliph, Uthman ibn Affan. He began receiving traditional Islamic education at the age of 6, memorising the Qur'an at 12. Part of the family wealth, a large property in Kairana, was granted by Akbar the Great. to Agra in Northern India, where in 1854 he engaged in a famous public debate with leading Islamic scholars. The main Muslim debater was Kairanawi, being assisted by English-speaking Muhammad Wazîr Khân and influential Islamic writer Imad ud-din Lahiz. Kairanawi used arguments from recent European theologically critical works that Pfander was unfamiliar with, having left Europe before these were published, though his main source of reference was the apocryphal sixteenth-century Gospel of Barnabas, which he held to be authentic.

Indian Rebellion of 1857 Following armed uprisings against the British in which he personally took part, Kairanawi (his property was confiscated by the Imperial British Raj) had to leave all of his property (auctioned later), and board a ship in Bombay. Arriving at the port of Mocha, Yemen, he walked to Mecca. The journey took two years. published by Ta-Ha. The book aims to respond to Christian criticism of Islam. It is the first Muslim book to use Western scholarly works in order to ascertain the errors and contradictions of the Bible. The doctrine of Trinity is purportedly contested using biblical, Christian and other sources. Christine Schirrmacher, a German scholar of Islamic Studies, states in an article on the Pfander-Kairanawi debate: "The Demonstration of the Truth' (izhâr al-haqq) served as a summary of all possible charges against Christianity and was therefore used after al-Kairânawî's death as a sort of encyclopaedia since al-Kairânawî extended the material of former polemicists like 'Ali Tabarî, Ibn Hazm or Ibn Taymiyya to a great extent."

Death Kairanwi died in 1891 (22 Ramadan 1308 AH) in Mecca and was buried in Jannat al-Mu'alla.