Sayyid Mumtaz Ali

Sayyid Mumtaz Ali Deobandi (27 September 1860 – 15 June 1935) was an Indian Sunni Muslim scholar and an advocate of women rights in the late 19th century. He was an alumnus of Darul Uloom Deoband. His book Huquq-e-Niswan and the journal Tehzeeb-e-Niswan that he started with his wife Muhammadi Begum are said to be pioneering works on women rights.

Biography Sayyid Mumtaz Ali was born on 27 September 1860 in Deoband, British India. He was a fellow and contemporary of Mahmud Hasan Deobandi and studied at Darul Uloom Deoband with Muhammad Yaqub Nanautawi and Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi.

After graduating from the Deoband seminary, Mumtaz Ali moved to Lahore and established a publishing house "Darul Isha'at". On 1 July 1898, he released a journal Tehzeeb-e-Niswan under the editorship of his wife Muhammadi Begum. This journal continued till 1949. In 1905, he started a journal, called, Mushīr-e-Mādar (Advisor to the mother), and then the children's journal Phūl (Flower) in 1909, Commending Mumtaz Ali's work, Tafṣīl al-bayān fī maqāṣid al-Qurʼān, former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al-Husseini, comments that "such book does not exist even in the Arab world". This 6 volume work of Mumtaz Ali on the Quran also received praise from scholarly figures including Anwar Shah Kashmiri, Abul Kalam Azad and Syed Sulaiman Nadwi.