Sanulla Makti Thangal was the renaissance leader of Muslim society in Malabar of British India and the advocate of western education among the backward community of Mappila. He was notable as the first Muslim scholar and first Salafi leader to know the significance of the progressed western culture and the necessity of the western education to realize the reformation of knowledge. He commenced his career as the excise inspector under British government in India and later resigned from the post to defend the Christian missionaries. He dreamt about new Muslim society who will imbibe the advantages of western culture without getting rid of the valuable Islamic culture. Sayyid Sanaulla Makti Thangal is often referred as one of the personalities influenced the Moplah Riots along with Sayyid Alavi Thangal, Veliyankode Umar Khasi and Sayid Fazal Pookoya Thangal.
Early life
He was born in 1847 born as the son of Ahmed Thangal, follower of Veliyankode Umer khasi at Veliyankode, Malappuram. He fetched his primary education in Arabic literature from his father and later admitted in various Darse at Veliyankode, Ponnani and Maranchery. He was enrolled in Chavakkad Higher elementary school and possessed good command in Hindustani, Persian, English, Tamil and his mother tongue Malayalam. Besides imbibing a deep knowledge inIslam religion, he was blessed with comprehensive knowledge in Christianity and Hinduism. He was influence by science, logic and philosophy and inclined to conquer more branches of western education. Thanks to his good command in English and Persian, he was appointed as the excise inspector in Malabar region and later he resigned this post to realize the influence of Christian missionaries in government
In the reformation field
He commenced in society a new pattern of reformation, which not rejects the primitive culture, approach and concepts, but realize the role of west education in the progress of backward community. He made herculean task to check the progress of Christian missionary in Malabar regions and made a counterattack on their attempt to tarnish the image of the Islamic prophetMuhammad. After realizing the precarious ignorance of the Moplha society even in their mother tongue Malayalam, he initiated a massive project to aware people about role of education and empowerment. He opposed armed and non-armed struggle against the ruling power and hailed his hatred towards the inclination of Muslims to be martyred and campaigned for progress of society. He realized necessity of the women empowerment and adopted a new pattern, which was based on Islamic concept of gender discrimination and motivated the women horde to be scholar by pointing the role model in Ayish, the wife of Muhammad.
His passion towards Muhammad
Out of deep love and respect to prophet Muhammad he adopted a strict stance in defending the attempt to tarnish Muhammad's image. In order to counter the ambush of Christian missionaries against Muhammad, he collected a large fund from Muslims and published a series of publication, named as Nabi Nanayam. He defended an usage, which was published in Sadashibamani and was not apt for the respect of Muhammad in unique and ever shining way.
Kerala Muslim renaissance
Even though he was reformist, he never lost his lineage of orthodox Muslims and was the promoter of Islamic ideology. He motivated women empowerment, which is based on gender discrimination of Islamic line and was influenced by the primitive ways of lauding prophet. He narrated about Muhammad in his masterpiece, Nabi Nanayam, In which he answered to Christian missionary for their questions about Islam and prophet Muhamed. And he calls Muslims to return to the "Thouheed". And he tried to clear the misconceptions of the peoples about Islam and Prophet Muhammed, so he is considered as the pioneer of Kerala muslim renaissance and the 'Islahi movements of Kerala'.
Literary works
He was the first Malabar Muslim to write a book in native language of Malayalam named Kadora Kodaram in year 1884. In 1885 he wrote another book named "Paropakaari" and it was noted as initiative for the reformation work. Muslim Janavum Vidyabyasavum was one of his notable work promoting the educational reformation of society
