Qazi Mu'tasim Billah

Mu'tasim Billah died on 15 July 2013. His janaza was performed in Khilgaon Balur Math by his student Abdur Rahman Hafezji of Mymensingh at noon. After the prayer, he was buried at the Shahjahanpur Graveyard in Dhaka. In 2017, the Jamia Shariyyah Malibagh madrasa published a book in memory of his life and contributions.

On 12 June 1959, Mu'tasim Billah married the daughter of Shah Sufi Haji Abdul Hamid of Collegepara in Magura. They had four sons and one daughter (d. 2011). His eldest son, Qazi Arif Billah is a teacher at the Mahbub Hefzkhana and his second son, Qazi Mahmud, is a mosque and madrasa custodian. His third son, Mawlana Qazi Mansur, is based in Saudi Arabia and his fourth son, Qazi Maruf, is based in Jessore.

Mu'tasim Billah returned to Bengal in 1957 after graduating, and began his career as a teacher at the Lauri-Ramnagar Alia Madrasa. In 1959, he joined the Bara Katara Madrasa in Dhaka, and subsequently the Jamia Imdadia in Kishoreganj in 1962. He was appointed as the Shaykh al-Hadith (Professor of Hadith studies) of the Katlasen Alia Madrasa in Mymensingh towards the end of 1966. Mu'tasim Billah established his own madrasa, the Jamia Islamia Darul Uloom Madania in 1969 at the suggestion of Abdullah Darkhawasti. From its establishment, he served as its principal and Shaykh al-Hadith for eight years. He then returned to Katlasen Alia Madrasa in 1977. He also served as a teacher at the Jamia Hussainia Arzabad madrasa in Mirpur for one year in 1979. The following year, Mu'tasim Billah was appointed as the principal of Jamia Shar'iyya Malibagh. During his time in Malibagh, he was also a professor at the University of Dhaka's department of Islamic Studies where he covered Sahih Muslim. He resigned after one and half years as a result of violations of religious precepts in teaching authority. Towards the start of 1992, he was a teacher at the Daratana Madrasa in Jessore, and the principal and Shaykh al-Hadith of Jamia Islamia Tantibazar in 1994. He returned to his two positions at Malibagh in 1997, and served there for the rest of his life.

Mu'tasim Billah is credited for popularising the use of the native Bengali language within the Islamic education system of Bangladesh. Immediately returning form Deoband in 1957, he formulated a Bengali-medium system for Qawmi madrasas in erstwhile East Pakistan. Mu'tasim Billah was known to have studied the works of many Bengali authors such as Qazi Nazrul Islam and Farrukh Ahmad, and initiated a culture of Bengali newspapers, annual magazines and literary conferences within the madrasa ecosystem. He inspired a generation of writers among Bangladeshi scholars. Although he was criticized in the contemporary era for changing the traditional method, later the practice of his thought spread throughout the madrasa ecosystem. He was the first to shape the curriculum of the Qawmi madrasas in such a manner. Among his other activities was the exclusion of the elementary prose literature book "al-Ḳalyūbī" from the syllabus and the inclusion of the Qasas an-Nabiyyin in the syllabus.

After completing his studies in Deoband, Mu'tasim Billah pledged bay'ah to Hussain Ahmed Madani in 1957. Despite being a Hanafi, Madani used to refer to Mu'tasim Billah as a "Mujtahid of the fourteenth century A. H.". Madani died on 5 December of that year and he then returned to Bengal two to three months later. In Bengal, he became a murid of Tajammul Ali, who later granted him khilafat (spiritual succession).

Mu'tasim Billah's education began under his parents, and then at the Gopalpur primary school. He studied there until class 2, when he moved to his maternal home where he studied until class 4. After that, Mu'tasim Billah became a student at his father's workplace, the Lauri-Ramnagar Alia Madrasa in Manirampur where he completed his Fazil qualification. In 1953, he set off for Hindustan after Ramadan to study at the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary in Saharanpur, where he enrolled at the Faculty of Arts. In 1956, he enrolled at the Faculty of Hadith studies and gained a sanad from Hussain Ahmed Madani. Among his teachers in Deoband were Hussain Ahmed Madani, Ibrahim Baliyavi, Izaz Ali Amrohi and Muhammad Tayyib Qasmi, Bashir Ahmad Khan and Jalil Ahmad Kairanvi. In Bangladesh, he studied under Tajammul Ali, Qamaruddin Silhati and Ashraf Ali Dharmanduli.

Qazi Mu'tasim Billah Bahar (Bengali: কাজী মুতাসিম বিল্লাহ বাহার; 15 June 1933 – 15 July 2013) was a Bangladeshi Islamic scholar, teacher, author and politician. He was the principal of Jamia Shar'iyya Malibagh for over four decades, a former professor at the University of Dhaka and the founding principal of Jamia Islamia Darul Uloom Madania in Jatrabari, Dhaka. He has written many books and articles in the Bengali language and pioneered the introduction of a Bengali-medium among the Qawmi madrasas of Bangladesh.

Qazi Mu'tasim Billah Bahar was born on 15 June 1933, to a Bengali Muslim family of Qadis in the village of Gopalpur in Kaliganj, Jhenaidah subdivision, which was then a part of the Bengal Presidency's Jessore District. Other sources claim that he was born in the village of Zamzampur in Jessore Sadar. His father, Qazi Sakhawat Husayn, was an Islamic scholar and politician, and his mother's name was Qurratun Nesa. His grandfather, Qazi Abdul Wadud, and great-grandfather, Qazi Rawshan Ali, were also prominent Sufis in the greater Jessore region.