The role of Pir Maulana Shah Sufi Mohammad Abu Bakar of Furfura in promoting mother tongue in Muslim society in Bengal/ বাংলায় মুসলিম সমাজে মাতৃভাষা প্রসারে ফুরফুরার পীর মাওলানা শাহ সুফী মহম্মদ আবুবকরের ভূমিকা

Abstract

Abu Bakar (1846 - 1939) was an influential Sufi and Pir of Bengal in Eastern India. He was born at Furfura in West Bengal. Around him, a reform movement was developed in the Muslim society in different parts of Bengal and Assam at that time. As a result of his movement, religious reform, social reform, educational reform etc. took place in the Muslim society. He tried to use the mother tongue Bengali as the medium for all reforms in Bengal. In the Muslim society where Arabic-Persian-Urdu was given importance, being a member of the Ulema class, he did not consider Bengali English and Hindi as foreign languages. He struggled for the practice and spread of Bengali language in the field of education, religious field, social, cultural, magazine, newspaper writing, political awareness, book writing etc. He even made effective efforts to spread this language in Khankas, Mosques and Maktabs. In this article, the role of Abu Bakar in the practice of Bengali language is tried to be explained with analysis.