Abu Bakr Muhammad Zakariya
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Abu Bakr Muhammad Zakariya is a contemporary Islamic scholar and researcher, known for his academic studies on Islamic theology and Bengali Islamic literature, including al-Shirk fi al-Qadim wa al-Hadith (Polytheism in Ancient and Modern Times).
Education and Scholarly Work
Zakariya pursued his higher academic studies in Saudi Arabia at the Islamic University of Madinah, where he completed his master's degree in the Department of Islamic Creed (Shuʿbat al-ʿAqidah) on 11 Dhu al-Qiʿdah 1418 AH (1998 CE). His master's thesis, titled al-Shirk fi al-Qadim wa al-Hadith, was written under the supervision of Professor Ahmad ibn ʿAtiyyah al-Ghamidi and received an evaluation of distinction (mumtaz), later being published in Riyadh. In this study, he investigated the historical origins and forms of polytheism (shirk) across earlier nations—such as the communities of Nuh, Hud, Salih, Ibrahim, Lut, Yusuf, Shuʿayb, Musa, Ilyas, and ʿIsa—as well as modern expressions of polytheism. The work compares ancient and contemporary forms of polytheism, refutes grave-worship and scholastic theological views that restrict the prophetic mission solely to establishing God's lordship (tawhid al-rububiyyah), and elaborates proofs against polytheism drawn from the Quran, the Sunnah, the innate human disposition (fitrah), and reason.
Zakariya has also contributed to bibliographical and critical scholarship on Islamic literature in Bengal. He composed al-Ihtimam bi-al-Sirah al-Nabawiyyah bi-al-Lughah al-Banghaliyyah (Attention to the Prophetic Biography in the Bengali Language) for a symposium organized by the King Fahd Complex for the Printing of the Holy Quran in Medina. The study tracks the history and evolution of Prophetic biography (sirah) literature written in or translated into Bengali from the fifteenth century CE onward, examining early poetic compositions, nineteenth-century prose treatises, writings by non-Muslim authors, translations from Arabic, Urdu, Persian, and English, and modern twentieth- and twenty-first-century analytical trends while assessing their textual authenticity and methodological rigor.
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List of Works
This theological treatise on Islamic creed examines the historical origins, theoretical concepts, and diverse manifestations of polytheism (shirk) across ancient nations and the modern world.
This bibliographical and critical study examines the history, development, and literature of the Prophetic biography (Sirah) written in or translated into the Bengali language.