Ayatallah Aqa Syed Ahmed Rizvi or Razavi (1316–1384 in Hijri) (Urdu; آیت اللہ آقا سید احمد رضوی کشمیری) was a Shiite Islamic jurist, religious reformer, and scholar who lived in Srinagar city of Kashmir. Hakeem Safdar Hamdani in his book Shian-e-Kashmir has termed him as a Mard-e-Mujahid or an Islamic warrior while others, like Syed Kazimi, has described him as a man who had a hidden and heavenly helping hand behind him.
Early life
Ayatollah Aqa Syed Ahmed Rizvi Kashmiri was born at Nabidpore-Zadibal area of Srinagar city in Indian Administrated Kashmir, in a revered religious and pious family and was a descendant of Shi'ite eighth Imam Ali al-Rizha, the son of Imam Musa al-Kadhim through one of the great saints and religious propagators Mir Aqa Syed Hussein Rizvi Qommi, who went to Kashmir from Qom, Iran in the year 821 A.H., during the reign of Sultan Sikander who appointed him as mentor of his son Sultan Zain-ul-Abidin locally known as Budshah.
Haaj Aqa Syed Hussain Rizvi (d. 1942), father of Ayatollah Syed Ahmed Rizvi Kashmiri, was a learned and well known preacher of his time, famous by name of Mir Haji Hussain. He along with some other members of his family, used to travel to Skardu, Baltistan, Yarkand and adjoining areas on business trips and preaching Islam. He was famously known in Skardu, Baltistan as Mir or Master. His descendants, who preferred to settle down there, are still remembered and revered as family of Ba’mir.
Haaj Aqa Syed Hassan or Mir Syed Hassan (d. 1928), uncle of Ayatollah Aqa Syed Ahmed Rizvi, was also a well known Islamic scholar, preacher and a spiritual figure who had established a Husseiniyeh or a shrine for commemoration of the Martyrdom of Imam Hussein near his residence in Srinagar. The arranging of gatherings for observing the Martyrdom of Imam Hussein was an ancestral practice prevalent in the family since hundreds of years. The practice prevails even to this time and people gather on the same place to remember the Martyrs of Karbala, which was later-on established by Haaj Aqa Hassan and is famous as Shrine of Haaj Syed Hassan or Mir Hassan. Mir Syed Hassan himself is buried in the said Shrine. The family especially Mir Haaj Syed Hassan Rizvi and Mir Haaj Syed Hussein Rizvi, like their ancestors, had devoted themselves for disseminating the true features and knowledge of the religion of Islam.
Genealogy
(Ayatollah) Syed Ahmed son of Syed Hussein son of Syed Muhammad son of Syed Baqar son of Syed Rehmatullah son of Syed Mohammad son of Syed Hidayatullah son of Syed Saleh (Haigam) son of Syed Sadeq son of Syed Mehdi son of Syed Haaj son of Syed Qasim son of Mir Syed Mohammad (interred at a Shrine in Ahmedpore, Baramulla, Kahsmir) son of Mir Syed Hussein Qomi (came to Kashmir in 821 AH, interred at Syed Pora Zainagair, Kashmir) son of Syed Muhammad son of Syed Ahmed son of Syed Minhaj son of Syed Jalal son of Syed Qasim son of Syed Ali Rizvi son of Syed Habib son of Syed Hussein son of Abu Abdullah Saiyed Ahmed 'Naqeeb' (of city of Qom) son of Syed Muhammad (Al-Aeraj) son of Abu Muqarem Ahmed son of Aqa Syed Moosa (alias Musa al Mubarraqa) son of Imam Mohammad al-Taqi al-Jawad son of Imam Abul Hassan al-Rizha.
Education
Ayatollah Syed Ahmed Rizvi got his early education from his family elders especially from his father and after completing his basic education at home left for further studies to Lucknow in India, where he studied under the leading scholars upto three years. From Lucknow, he went for further studies to the city of Najaf in Iraq, which has remained as the centre of Shitte Islamic seminaries and focus of spiritual subjects for almost fourteen hundred years. In Najaf, he studied in Islamic Seminaries under the prominent scholars and well-known jurists for more than twenty years, attending the lectures of Jurisprudence of Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Hussain Na'ini, Grand Ayatollah Aqa Abul Hassan Isfahani, Grand Ayatollah Syed Hussain Qommi, Grand Ayatollah Aqa Zia-ud-Din Iraqi and many other leading Grand Ayatollahs of that period and, thence, attained the degree of Ijtihad while passing through the heights and zenith of knowledge and character.