Muhammad Ilyas ibn Muhammad Ismail Kandhlawi Dihlawi (1884 – 13 July 1944) was an Indian Islamic scholar who founded the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic revivalist movement, in 1925,

Muhammad Ilyas Kandhlawi

1st Amir of Tablighi Jamaat

Muhammad Ilyas was born in 1303 AH (1885/1886) in the village of Kandhla, Muzaffarnagar district, North-West Provinces, British India (in present-day Shamli district, Uttar Pradesh, India). His year of birth can be computed by the tarikhi  name "Akhtar Ilyas" (اختر الیاس) 

In a local maktab , he memorized one and a quarter ajza' of the Qur'an, and he completed memorizing the Qur'an under his father's supervision in Nizamuddin area, Delhi. Thereafter, he studied the elementary books of Arabic and Persian language mostly under his father. Later on, he lived with and studied under Rashid Ahmad Gangohi. In 1905, Rashid Ahmad Gangohi died, when Muhammad Ilyas was 20. In 1908, Muhammad Ilyas enrolled in Darul Uloom Deoband. He also studied under Mahmud Hasan Deobandi.

Muḥammad Ilyas ibn Muḥammad Ismail Kandhlawi Dihlawi (1884 – 13 July 1944) was an Indian Islamic scholar who founded the Tablighi Jamaat Islamic revivalist movement, in 1925, in Mewat province.

In the early 1920s, he prepared a team of young madrasah graduates from Deoband and Saharanpur and sent them to Mewat to establish a network of mosques and Islamic schools movement.[citation needed] He once said that if he had to attribute a name to his movement, it would have been Tehreek-e-Imaan ('Imaan/Faith movement'). The people of South Asia started calling the devotees Tableeghi and this name eventually became popular among the common people.The Tablighi Jamaat has since gone on to become one of the most widespread grassroots Islamic movements in the world with a presence in hundreds of countries, including Canada, South Africa and the UK.