CHENNAI : Renowned Islamic scholar His Holiness Ashaykh Afdhalul Ulama,Dr.Thaika Shuaib Alim 90, passed away peacefully in Kilakarai, South India on Monday and his funeral took place on Tuesday, June 15 in his hometown.
Dr.Thaika Shuaib Alim M.A,PD.D(LIT),M.F.A (born in July 29, 1930) is a South Indian Islamic scholar, spiritual guide, and author. In May 1994, he became the first Tamil Muslim to receive the National Award for “Outstanding Arabic Scholar”. In 2013, he was listed in The 500 Most Influential Muslims.
Thaikka Shuaib Alim was born in Kilakarai, South India.He comes from a family of Islamic scholars who have taught the Islamic sciences for centuries. His father, Thaika Ahmad Abdul Qadir Alim was a scholar and spiritual guide. His grandfather, Shahul Hamid was a scholar and missionary. His granduncle was the ascetic and poet Abdul Qadir (d. 1913), and his great-grandfather was the renewer Sayyid Muhammad (d. 1316), widely known as “Imam al-‘Arus” or “Mappillai Lebbai Alim”. Amongst Shuaib’s predecessors is the founder of the Arusiyyah Seminary, Sadaqatullah al-Qahiri.
He was a descendant of the Caliph Abu Bakr, tracing his lineage through Sadaq Maraikkayar, (a companion of Nagore Shahul Hamid), who was a descendant of Muhammad Khilji.
Thaikka Shuaib Alim’s father took care of his upbringing at the Arusiyyah Seminary, and he was both his teacher and spiritual master. His father gave him several ijazah, or certificates of authority to teach Islamic law. After completing the traditional curriculum, he sat with the scholars of Al-Baqiyat As-Salihat Seminary and Jamalia Arabic College in South India, and Darul Uloom Deoband and Jamia Millia Islamia in North India.
He read Arabic and Persian at the University of Ceylon (Peradeniya). His research of the Arwi (South India and Sri Lanka) region earned him a M. A. and then a Ph.D. from the Columbia Pacific University.
Thaikka Shuaib Alim received training from his father in Sufism, until he attained qualification as a murshid and the rank of a spiritual master in the Sufi tradition. He inherited the mantle of the Arusiyya branch of the Qadiriyya tariqa. He further received authorisation from Abdul Karim al-Kasnazani.
