Khan Bahadur Hassanally Effendi (The Founder of Sindh Madressatul Islam)
Hassanally Effendi was born on 14th August 1830 in a respectable family of Akhunds in Hyderabad, Sindh. While still very young, he lost his father and was brought up by his elder brother. According to the tradition of his family, he was enrolled in a local ‘Maktab’ to read the Holy Quran and learn Arabic and Persian.
Hassanally’s dream to establish an educational institution came true on 1st September 1885, when Sindh Madressatul Islam was formally founded. A ceremony was arranged to mark the beginning of the institution, to which he invited a couple of friends and well-wishers. Hassanally spoke for about two hours in that function in which he described the social and economic conditions of the Muslims of Sindh and they took measures to improve the educational status of the Muslims of Sindh.
By 1895, Hassanally Effendi and his friends in the cause had turned the institution of Sindh Madressatul Islam into a center of excellence. It consisted of a high school, three primary branches of Sindhi, Urdu, and Gujarati. In this institution, the Holy Quran classes and religious instructions were given regularly. A group of highly dedicated teachers had converted themselves into a spirited team around the dream of Hassanally Effendi. The institution had already started producing the generations of educated Sindhi Muslims, with the first batch of six students passing the examination conducted by the University of Bombay in 1892.