Seyed Mohammad Alam (Sadr al-Islam), founder of the Mohammadiyeh School of Dezhgan
The late Seyed Mohammad ibn Seyed Abdolrahim ibn Seyed Mansur, a descendant of Seyed Kamel Pir, was born in 1358 AH in the village of Deh Tal, one of the villages of Gudeh in the Larestan of that time. After learning the Holy Quran and the fundamentals of the religious sciences, at the age of twelve he made his way to Qeshm Island and studied the religious sciences at the Kamaliyyeh School under the late Sheikh Yahya ibn Sheikh Mohammad Kamal, then regarded as one of the region's great scholars. As he was a gifted student of great intelligence, he soon became one of the distinguished students of the Kamaliyyeh School. During one of the annual trips Sheikh Yahya made for religious preaching from Dezhgan to Bastak, the late Haji Mohammad Khan Bastaki, ruler of Dezhgan, asked him to select one of his outstanding students and send him to Dezhgan for guidance, preaching and handling religious matters. The late Sheikh Yahya ibn Sheikh Mohammad Al Kamal appointed Seyed Mohammad ibn Seyed Abdolrahim to this post and introduced him to Haji Mohammad Khan Bastaki.
After settling in Dezhgan and taking charge of affairs, Seyed Mohammad proposed to Haji Mohammad Khan that he send him to Mecca or Medina to complete his religious and scholarly knowledge. Haji Mohammad Khan accepted the proposal and sent him to the Hejaz to continue his studies.
Seyed Mohammad spent several years in Mecca studying and completing the religious sciences, studying under teachers such as Seyed Ahmad Zayni Dahlan, the Meccan jurist, historian and scholar. But since he had a curious and tireless spirit for learning, he went to Egypt to complete his knowledge further and spent several years at Al-Azhar University in Cairo studying and researching the sciences; along with acquiring the necessary skills in the Sharia sciences, he also learned ophthalmology, and returned home with scholarly success.
After his return, the late Haji Mohammad Khan Bastaki built a school for him called Mohammadiyeh in Dezhgan, and many students came to it from near and far. A few years later, at the suggestion of one of the khans of Bastak, he was given the title “Sadr al-Islam”, which had been designated for him by the court of Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar. Sadr al-Islam was a learned jurist and thinker, humble and generous in character, with extensive knowledge of the Sharia sciences, and he was engaged in teaching and activity at the Mohammadiyeh School with asceticism and contentment.
The late Sadr al-Islam left works and writings in various fields. A few years after his death his eldest son, the late Seyed Abdolrahim, succeeded him at the Mohammadiyeh School, but after his death, since there was no capable successor, the school was closed for a time, and all the many books in the library of the Mohammadiyeh School of Dezhgan were transferred by several camels to Bastak on the order of Soleiman Khan Bastaki, then ruler of Dezhgan. After some time, all the books of the Mohammadiyeh School along with the writings of the late Sadr al-Islam were lost, and no news of them has been found to this day. Only one of his writings in Arabic, entitled “Al-Tahdhib fi Sharh Kitab al-Taqrib” — a commentary on the work of Qadi Abu Shuja Ahmad ibn Mohammad ibn Hussein Isfahani on the jurisprudence of Imam Shafi'i — was found among the books of his youngest son, the late Seyed Amir Sheikh Ghatali; it was written on the first of Rabi' al-Awwal 1326 AH by Mohammad ibn Mahmud Dezhgani and has not yet been printed.
Many students were trained at the Mohammadiyeh School; among the most famous was the late Sheikh Habib Farsi of “Hiru” — a village between Dezhgan and Lamzan — who for years was a great mufti and mujtahid, judge and teacher in Muscat, the capital of Oman, and wrote many works. Another student was the late Sheikh Abdolrahman Sheikh Mohammad Sheikh Zakariya, one of the scholars and notable figures of Qeshm Island, and another famous student was his eldest son, the late Seyed Abdolrahim ibn Seyed Mohammad Alam Sadr al-Islam, who after his father's death ran the Mohammadiyeh Religious School of Dezhgan until the last moments of his life and served as the mufti for the region's religious matters. Besides the religious sciences, he had also learned ophthalmology from his father and treated patients' eyes. Seyed Abdolrahim died in Dezhgan in 1359 AH.
Contact us to learn about the programs and to collaborate with the complex.
