Ilm-ud-Din

Ilm Deen
Born4 December 1908
Lahore, Punjab, British India
Died31 October 1929 (aged 20)
Central Jail Mianwali, Punjab, British India
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Resting placeMiani Sahib Graveyard, Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan
Criminal statusExecuted
ConvictionMurder
Criminal penaltyDeath

Ilm Deen, also written as Alimuddin (4 December 1908 – 31 October 1929), was an Indian Muslim carpenter who assassinated a book publisher named Mahashe Rajpal Malhotra for publishing the book Rangila Rasul, which was deemed derogatory towards the Islamic prophet Muhammad by Muslims.[1] He was executed for this crime.

In Pakistan, a full-length feature film has been produced on the life of Alimuddin and screened on television worldwide.[2]

Background

Mahashe Rajpal published an anonymous pamphlet in 1923 titled Rangila Rasul, which contained a discourteous interpretation of the hadiths of Sahih al-Bukhari, among other sources, along with a salacious commentary. The book was considered highly controversial due to its satire of the marital life of the prophet Muhammad.[3][4]

Various sections of the Indian Muslim community started a movement demanding that the book be banned. In 1927, the administration of the British Raj enacted a law prohibiting insults aimed at founders and leaders of religious communities.[5][6][7]

Murder

Ilm Deen decided to kill the publisher. On April 6, 1929, he set out for the bazaar and purchased a dagger for one rupee. He hid the dagger in his pants and waited for Rajpal at some distance from Rajpal's shop. Rajpal had not arrived yet. Ilm Deen did not know what Rajpal looked like. He tried to find out where Rajpal was through people that were around. Rajpal entered the shop and Ilm Deen did not notice him but soon someone alerted him that Rajpal was inside. The young man entered the shop, lunged forward and attacked him. He stabbed his dagger into the chest of Rajpal. He fell to the ground and died instantly. The police arrested Ilm Deen and took him to Lahori Gate Police Station. Later Ilm Deen was shifted to Central Jail Mianwali. The murder caused considerable religious tension in Punjab and beyond.[8]

Trial and execution

The trial lawyer for Ilm Deen was Farrukh Hussain.

Two witnesses from the prosecution side claimed that he was guilty. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, then a prominent Indian lawyer, and later the founder of Pakistan, was then sought out to appear in the appeal hearing at the Lahore High Court.[9] Jinnah appealed on the grounds of extenuating circumstances, saying that Ilm Deen was only 19 or 20. He asked for the death sentence to be commuted to imprisonment for life. This contention was rejected by the court. Ilm Deen was convicted and given the death penalty according to the Indian Penal Code, and subsequently executed.[10]

Ilm Deen enjoys popularity among some of Pakistan's Islamists, who perceive him as a defender of the faith who has unjustly been executed and thus became a martyr, leading to many apologetic books and movies being made as a way to commemorate him.[11]

Books

Year Title Author Publisher Language
1929 Shahīd-i Islām Janāb G̲ẖāzī ʻIlmuddīn Shahīd Muhammad Ismaʻil Munshī Naṣīr Aḥmad, Lahore Punjabi
1972 ʻĀshiq-i rasūl-i maqbūl G̲h̲āzī ʻIlm Dīn shahīd Miyān̲ Muḥammad Abūlfatḥ Maktaban Merī Library, Lahore Urdu
1982 G̲h̲āzī ʻIlmuddīn Shahīd Rā'e Muḥammad Kamāl Karam Publications, Lahore
1990 G̲h̲āzī ʻIlmuddīn shahīd Ẓafar Iqbāl Nagīnah Jang Publications, Lahore
2004 Naʻt-i ʻishq-i Muḥammad : barāʼe G̲h̲āzī ʻIlmuddīn Shahīd Sayyid Ṣādiq Shāh Zawiya Publishers, Lahore Punjabi
2007 G̲h̲āzī ʻIlmuddīn shahīd : Shahīd-i nāmūs-i risālat K̲h̲ūlah Matīn ʻIlm va ʻIrfān Publishers, Lahore Urdu
G̲h̲āzī ʻIlmuddīn Shahīd raḥmatulláh alaih Sayyid Muḥammad ʻUsmān Nūrī Kutub K̲h̲ānah, Lahore
2008 G̲h̲āzī ʻIlmuddīn shahīd Farḥān Zulfiqār Ḥamzah Buks, Lahore

Films

Year Title Director Producer Actor who portrayed Ilm Deen Language
1978 Ghazi Ilmuddin Shaheed Haidar Haidar Haidar Punjabi
2002 Rasheed Dogar Riaz & Shehzad Gujjar Moammar Rana Urdu

Bibliography

  • Ambedkar, Bhimrao Ramji (1945). Thoughts On Pakistan (Google Books) (published 2015). OCLC 5167934. Retrieved 5 August 2025.
  • Assad, Ahmed (31 October 2018). "A brief history of the anti-blasphemy laws". Karachi: Herald (Pakistan). Dawn Media Group. Retrieved 6 August 2025.
  • Nair, Neeti (7 August 2013). "Beyond the 'Communal' 1920s: The Problem of Intention, Legislative Pragmatism, and the Making of Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code". The Indian Economic & Social History Review. 50 (3). Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publishing: 317–340. doi:10.1177/0019464613494622. S2CID 144068997. Retrieved 5 August 2025.

References

  1. ^ Rumi, Raza (30 October 2015). "Blasphemy it was not". The Friday Times (newspaper). Retrieved 22 April 2019.
  2. ^ Gupta, Amit Kumar (1997). "Defying Death: Nationalist Revolutionism in India, 1897-1938". Social Scientist. 25 (9): 3–27. doi:10.2307/3517678. JSTOR 20488099. Retrieved 30 April 2022., page 47.
  3. ^ Ambedkar 1945, pp. 165, 170: "Some of the most serious of these outrages were perpetrated in connection with the agitation relating to Rangila Rasul and Risala Vartman two publications containing a most scurrilous attack on the Prophet Muhammed [...] whose pamphlet "Rangila Rasul", containing a scurrilous attack on the Prophet of Islam"
  4. ^ Nair 2009, p. 655: "Hindu–Muslim relations in the Punjab had reached a new low with the publication of the bigoted pamphlet ‘Rangila Rasul’ in 1924."
  5. ^ Soli J. Sorabjee (25 June 2006). "Insult to religion". Indian Express (newspaper). Retrieved 22 April 2019.
  6. ^ Nair 2009, p. 655: " The ensuing tension abated only with the passage of the Criminal Law Amendment Act XXV that made it a cognizable crime to insult the founders and leaders of any religious community."
  7. ^ Assad 2018: "The colonial authorities were surprised when Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court, Sir Shadi Lal, chose Singh, who was a Christian convert from Hinduism, to hear the case. They were even more surprised at Rajpal’s acquittal and Singh’s reasoning for it. They moved swiftly to do damage control by trying to ensure an authoritative judgment in a similar case involving Arya Samaj. They hoped the judgement, in what was known as the Risala-i-Vartman case, would supersede Singh’s judgment. Ultimately, however, they decided that the Vartman judgment was insufficient and a new law was required."
  8. ^ "Salmaan Taseer murder case harks back to 1929 killing of Hindu publisher". the Guardian. 12 March 2015. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  9. ^ Ramzi, Shanaz (30 March 2014). "Where history meets modern comforts". DAWN.COM. Retrieved 17 December 2023.
  10. ^ "Where executed blasphemy killer is revered as a saint". The New Indian Express. 22 October 2016. Retrieved 22 December 2020.
  11. ^ Swami, Praveen (3 July 2022). "How India's first blasphemy murderer was made Pakistan's model citizen". The Print.
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