Darul Uloom Deoband

Darul Uloom Deoband is an Islamic seminary in Deoband, Uttar Pradesh, India, established on 15 Muharram 1283 AH / 31 May 1866, in the aftermath of the 1857 revolt, through the efforts of Sayyid Muhammad Abid and other local scholars and notables. Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi is later described in historiography as the seminary’s intellectual guide and principal founder (bānī-yi aʿẓam). The institution, which began under a pomegranate tree with the Dars-i Nizami curriculum, later developed into a leading center of Islamic learning in South Asia, after Al-Azhar University. It came to be regarded as a vanguard of Sunni Muslim identity in the Indian subcontinent and gave rise to the Sunni Deobandi movement. The seminary has been described not merely as a madrasa but as a 'center of Islamic culture' and a 'patrimony for the Islamic world.' Darul Uloom was initially functioning in a mosque, and later it was shifted with the passage of time to rented houses and also to Jami Mosque. Darul Uloom had its first independent building in 1879, after which it gradually added several buildings and halls for various faculties and departments. Darul Uloom was initially functioning in a mosque and later shifted to rented houses; it also worked in Jamia Mosque.