Darul Uloom Deoband

The Darul Uloom Deoband (Hindi: दारुल उलूम देवबन्द, Urdu: دارالعلوم دیوبند‎) is an Islamic school in India where the Deobandi Islamic movement was started. It is located at Deoband, a town in Saharanpur district of Uttar Pradesh, India. It was founded in 1866 by several prominent Islamic scholars (Ulema), headed by Maulana Muhammad Qasim Nanotvi. The other prominent founding scholars were Maulana Rasheed Ahmed Gangohi and Haji Saiyyid 'abid Husaiyn. The institution is highly respected across the India, as well as in other parts of the Indian subcontinent.

A large group of scholars at the Darul Uloom Deoband had opposed the establishment of a state established along sectarian lines, particularly the demands of Muhammad Ali Jinnah's Muslim League for the Partition of British India into Muslim and non-Muslim sections. It has been controversially suggested that the real reason for their opposition to Partition was their desire to Islamize all of India. Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani was one of the scholars who opposed the idea of Pakistan. He was also Shaiykhul-Hadees (Chief of Hadees department) of Darul Uloom Deoband and led the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind, an organization of the 'Ulama, that saw nothing Islamic in the idea of Pakistan. He said: "All should endeavour jointly for such a democratic government in which Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians and Parsis are included. Such a freedom is in accordance with Islam." The school advocates an orthodox version of Islam and has repeatedly distanced itself from religious extremism. While it has often seemed to distance itself from religious extremism, it has also courted controversy in free speech cases, for instance in January 2012 when it issued a fatwa calling for author Salman Rushdie to be barred from entering India to attend a literature festival because he had "hurt Muslim sentiments".