At some point, Choudhury became a disciple of
Imdadullah Muhajir Makki, a
Sufi scholar of the
Chishti Order. He is said to have fought alongside Makki against the
British in the
Battle of Shamli, a part of the greater
Indian Rebellion of 1857. Upon the failure of the revolt however, both men left the Indian subcontinent and migrated to
Mecca. Choudhury was among the seventeen families that had emigrated from
Sylhet, with other families being that of
Syed Bakht Majumdar of Sylhet town, the Mians of
Sonatia, the ancestors of
Principal Habibur Rahman and the ancestors of
Khan Bahadur Mahmud Ali (former Assam minister). Tradition states that while in Mecca, Choudhury dreamt he was visited by the
Islamic prophet
Muhammad, who instructed him to go back to his homeland and preach Islam and provide Islamic education. Returning to his native village, in 1873, Choudhury established a
madrasa in his own home, which received the name "Madinatul Uloom Bagbari Najibia Alia Madrasa" after its founder, shortened to
Madinatul Uloom Bagbari. Modelled after the recently established
Darul Uloom Deoband, it is considered to be the first true madrasa in the
Greater Sylhet region, offering a standardised religious education in contrast to the informal institutions which had existed there previously. It came to play a very prominent role in producing
Arabic language scholars in the
Greater Sylhet region, a reputation it maintains to the present-day. ==Death and legacy==