ABSTRACT
Sayyid Ahmad, popularly remembered as a shahid, belonged to a family of saintly renown which had migrated to India in the early 13th century and had first settled in the Kara region. Sayyid Ahmad seems to have realised from an early age the urgency of religious reforms and the need for building up an organisation and collecting a band of dedicated followers who could bear arms too. The significance of Sayyid Ahmad’s work at Patna was not lost upon some of the early English writers on the Wahhabi Movement. One such observant writer remarked, “on his return from Hajj Syed Ahmad visited Patna where he was met by Syed Muhammad Hussain of Patna with a large body of Crescentaders. Patna was chosen as the first organised centre by Sayyid Ahmad himself, and its subsequent active role justified the choice. In fact, the period preceding the journey for Hajj, and that immediately after the return, witnessed the commencement of the movement.
