arrested in 1868 by the British on suspicion of being the leader of the Wahhabi insurgents in Delhi and detained for six months but was eventually released without charge after it had emerged that he had not supported the rebels. Husain consistently denied any links with the Wahhabis as well as any role in the Delhi uprising in 1857. Because he was seen by the British as the only scholar of the Ahl-i Hadith who could allay the conflict between the movement and followers of the prevailing Hanafi school of thought, which often resulted in civil disturbances that the Government sought to prevent, and because he also knew English which was very rare among Indian Muslim scholars at the time, Husain's turbulent relations with the British at Delhi had improved. He was granted a letter of recommendation by the government to the British Vice Consul in Jeddah when he travelled there in 1883 to perform the Hajj pilgrimage. However, he was already denounced as a Wahhabi by Indian Hanafis to the Ottoman governor of Jedda who had him arrested and imprisoned before he could present the letter. He was later released with the intervention of the British Vice Consul. Founding of Jamaat Ahl-i Hadith Within a couple of years of his release from prison in 1868, Husian, together with Siddiq Hasan Khan of Bhopal and Muhammad Husain Batalvi (c.1840–1920), two influential fellow alumni of the Madrasah-i Rahimiyah, formally founded the politico-religious organisation known as the Jamaat Ahl-i Hadith, the Party of the People of the Hadith. However, their zealous opposition against co-religionists and non-Muslims alike, to the extent of using violence against mosques and shrines, and their strong anti-polytheist, anti-innovation, anti-Shia and anti-Christian message in close resemblance to the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), did not stop other Muslim groups from denouncing them as Wahhabis. Neither did the British Government of India cease using this term for them until the Ahl-i Hadith leaders published, in 1885, a book denying any links with Wahhabism and called for the Government to cease employing this term in reference to them. Husain taught hadith at Delhi for half a century, gaining international renown in this field and attracting students from different parts of India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, the Hijaz and Najd. Almost all of the major scholars of the early Ahl-i Hadith movement studied under him. Husain held together a network of