Shaykh Muhammad Akhtar Rida Khan al-Azhari محمد أختر رضا خان الأزهري

Shaykh Muhammad Akhtar Rida Khan al-Azhari (1362-1439 AH / 1943-2018 CE) rahimahullah was the Grand Mufti of India and the supreme religious authority of the South Asian Sunni-Barelvi community of his generation. He was the grandson of the towering reformist scholar Imam Ahmad Rida Khan, the founder of the Barelvi movement of Indian Sunni Islam. He received his foundational education at Manzar al-Islam, the family madrasa in Bareilly, and subsequently pursued advanced studies at al-Azhar in Cairo, the historic center of Sunni scholarship in the Arab world. Returning to India, he served as Grand Mufti and led the development of the Sunni scholarly establishment in the subcontinent through the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. His scholarly work included the defense of the high Sunni veneration of the Companions radiyallahu anhum and engagement with doctrinal questions pertaining to Sunni-Ashari-Maturidi theology.