

Madrasa Islamia Arabia Khadimul-Uloom Baghonwali and Bajheri. "Profile of Maulana Mohammad Ilyas Kandhlawi".Life and Mission of Maulana Muhammad Ilyas. "Structures of Organisation and Loci of Authority in a Glocal Islamic Movement: The Tablighi Jama'at in Britain".


In 1908, Muhammad Ilyas enrolled in Darul Uloom Deoband. In 1905, Rashid Ahmad Gangohi died, when Muhammad Ilyas was 20. Later on, he lived with and studied under Rashid Ahmad Gangohi.

Thereafter, he studied the elementary books of Arabic and Persian language mostly under his father. In a local maktab (school), he memorized one and a quarter ajza' of the Qur'an, and he completed memorizing the Qur'an under his father's supervision in Nizamuddin area, Delhi. His year of birth can be computed by the tarikhi ( chronogrammatic) name "Akhtar Ilyas" ( اختر الیاس) using abjad numerals. Muhammad Ilyas was born in 1303 AH (1885/1886) in the village of Kandhla, Muzaffarnagar district, North-West Provinces, British India (in present-day Shamli district, Uttar Pradesh, India). Muḥammad Ilyās ibn Muḥammad Ismā‘īl Kāndhlawī Dihlawī (1885 – 13 July 1944) was an Indian Islamic scholar who founded the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic revivalist movement, in 1925, in Mewat province.
