By Shaykh Muhammad Zakariyya Kandhalawi
Translated by Shaykh Yusuf Karaan
The Ramadan of Mawlana Shah ‘Abd al-Rahim Raipuri is also described in Tadhkirah al-Khalil. He was a man with tremendous love and zeal for the teaching of the Qur’an, for which purpose he was instrumental in the erection of numerous Qur’anic schools in the rural areas and in and around the district of Dehradun (Northern India).
He had great love for the recitation of the Qur’an. He was himself a hafidh and it was one of his general habits to spend practically the whole of the night in tilawah (recitation). Of the whole twenty-four hours of the day it was hardly ever that he slept for one hour during the night. He loved solitude and felt depressed at the presence of people in his company as it robbed him of the opportunity of tilawah. The time between ‘Asr and Maghrib was set aside for meeting the public (as was the time from 9 to 10 in the morning).
