Shah Wali Allah

In this paper I will analyse Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī’s (1703-1762) characterisation of the early divide in Islamic jurisprudence between the aṣḥāb al-raʾy, commonly translated as rationalists, and the ahl al-ḥadīth, the traditionalists who refused to engage in the sophisticated legal reasoning which the former had become famous for, instead vindicating the limitation of law to the evident implication of the scripture. For the sake of brevity, I will confine my analysis to the chapter “Causes of the disagreement between the ahl al-ḥadīth and the aṣḥāb al-raʾy” in al-Dihlawī’s “al-Inṣāf fī bayān asbāb al-ikhtilāf” (Fair Elucidation of the Causes of Disagreement)1. I will compare his portrayal of the conflict with present Islamicist research, examining harmony and variation. Specifically, the legal hermeneutics of both parties will be considered alongside underlying conceptions of the historical environment and course of development. As the chapter at hand further gives many clues about al-Dihlawī’s personal stance on the matter, I will review respective passages as part of the studies on the confluence and later legacy of these two parties. Considering that he is the principal figure of the traditionalist revival in 18th century India, his remarks are important to understand the link between modern Salafi literalism and the early traditionalists of the formation period. To which degree does Shāh Walī Allāh al-Dihlawī’s characterisation of the divide differ from the results of present Islamicist research, and how does his particular framing of the conflict relate to his revivalist thought?  / Term paper in "Hadith", B.A. Islamic Studies course by Olly Ackermann at FUB in winter 2019. Grade: 1,0.

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Şah Veliyyullah ed-Dihlevi'nin erken dönem ehli rey ve ehli hadis tartışmalarını değerlendirişi.

وصف شاه ولي الله الدهلوي للنزاع التاريخي بين مدرستي الرأي والحديث

Qutb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn 'Abdul Raḥīm, better known as Shāh Walīullāh Dehlawi, (1703-1762) was a great Islamic thinker, reformer and philosopher. He was no doubt the greatest Islamic scholar of India and one of the celebrated thinkers of the Muslim history. Shāh Walīullāh Dehlawi’s main focus was on the Qur'an, Hadīth, 'Aqā'id (beliefs), Kalām (scholastics), Tasawwuf (spiritual sciences), socio-political and ethical philosophy.

He lived at a turbulent time in India when the Mughal Empire (1526-1857) was declining swiftly after the bright and powerful reign of Abu al-Muẓaffar Muḥiud-Dīn Muḥammad Aurangzeb ‘Ālamgīr (1618 – 1707) who was last great Mughal Emperor and ruled the widest parts of the greater India of known history for nearly 50 years (1658 –1707). In view of the prevailing political chaos, moral corruption and economic declining of the East, Shāh Walīullāh chalked out a plan of complete revolution. In this context, he expounded rare political, social, economical and religious theories which are scattered in his various works.

Maulāna Syed Muḥammad Miyān  in his books ‘Ulama-e-Hind ka Shāndār Mādhi (Glorious Past of the Muslim Scholars) and ‘Tahrīk Reshmi Rūmāl’ (Silk Letter Movement) has summarised these thoughts which we present in the next lines with necessary additions of resources, background, historical context as well as conclusion.

The Islamic World during the eighteenth century witnessed something of a religious renaissance and the resulting reformist movements of two scholars in particular would have a lasting impact on Muslim identities: Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb inspired the Muwaḥḥidūn, a religiopolitical movement in Arabia whose members would come to be known derogatorily as Wahhābīs, and Shāh Walī Allāh, whose school in Delhi cultivated several Islamic movements in South Asia; one of these Walī Allāh-inspired movements, the Ṭarīqah Muḥammadīyyah, emerged during the nineteenth century and led a failed insurrection against the British government in India from the North-West Frontier. The Ṭarīqah and its quietist offshoot, the Ahl-i Ḥadīth, were brandished Indian Wahhābīs by colonial authorities and Indian subjects alike due to the similarities they shared with their Arabian counterpart. Following the 1857 Mutiny, which some British authorities blamed on Wahhābism, members of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth were subjected to numerous forms of persecution despite publically condemning jihad in British India and rejecting any affiliation to Wahhābism. Yet, by the turn of the twentieth century, the Ahl-i Ḥadīth had begun forming links with the Arabian Wahhābīs which developed into a significant alliance well before the end of colonial rule in India. This dissertation seeks to contextualise the phenomenon of Indian Wahhābism by focusing on the Ahl-i Ḥadīth’s intellectual roots, historical development, particular beliefs and how it came to be associated with Arabian Wahhābism along with the events which led to the two movements converging.

The colonial transition brought massive ideological upheavals in Bengal Islam, with the mainstreaming of a political ideology oppositional to the received politico-spiritual dispensation. The reformist rhetoric through which this oppositional ideology was articulated was based on a modern scripturalist turn initiated by Shāh Walī Allāh Dehlawi, but it was also shaped by bigger onto-theological debates in the longer history of Islam. In this paper, we trace how the grand ontotheological debates, such as the debate on wa ḥdat al-wujūd vs. wa ḥdat a l-shuhūd, were overdetermined by the encounters between Islam and its others at various intersection points between crisscrossing flows traversing a wide geography. This article explores this question in relation to the expansion of the Niżāmpurī-Azamgarhi ṭarīqaha reformist Sufi order across the Bengal-Arakan frontier linking South and Southeast Asia. The order spread its roots to Arakan based on preexisting Muslim network consolidated by increasing migration on the back of a rice export economy. The departure of the British colonialists and formation of post-colonial states led to refrontierization at the Bengal-Arakan border, giving rise to politicization of identities and new intensities of violence which decimated the Sufi diaspora in Arakan .

Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi (d. 1762) who was famious face of the 18th century revival (tajded) movements of the Indian subcontinent have been the subject of a large number of diffrent scientifi research. This study aims to attempt to develop a
bibliography of the litterateur which has been written about him. Also in this study will be focused on the historical course of research and endeavored to determine the basic approach of works in question.

OPEN ACCESS: https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2021.1919192

This article investigates how Arabic texts reached multilingual audiences in North India in the eighteenth century. Drawing on a remarkable treatise on translating the Qur’an into Persian by the Delhi intellectual Shāh Walī-Allāh (d. 1176/1762), it argues that so-called “interlinear” translations functioned to preserve the sound of Arabic utterances as well as their meaning. By anchoring another language to Arabic utterances, these translations also reified symbolic hierarchies between Arabic and languages used to translate it. Walī-Allāh’s understanding of translatability was closely tied up with notions of Qur’anic structure (naẓm) and the sonic qualities of the Arabic language, but also informed by a sensitivity to linguistic difference in the multilingual society he lived in.

In his 'Even-handed Exposition of the Causes of Disagreement', the 18-century Indian thinker Shah Wali Allah al-Dihwlawi retraces the main phases in Islamic intellectual history. He explains how Muhammad's unitary experience gave birth to multiple law schools, all called to mutual recognition.
A synthetic presentation of how Sunnism works, in the words of one of its leading figures.

The great scholar of the Indian subcontinent from the 18th century Shah Waliullah Al-Dehlawi has pioneered in reform ideas. He was characterized by a deep knowledge of Islamic Studies, activism, analytical skills, as well as a good knowledge of the Arabic language which enabled him to write works that would be much widely red both then and now. His analytical skills can be recognized especially in his work Al-Insaf fi Bejan Esbab al-Ikhtilaf which explains the reasons behind the differences in Islam, and whose first chapter, among other things, is addressed in this paper. The author, also, gives information about the life of this great man, the father of reformist ideas among the Muslims of India, and presents his views on the divergence between the companions of the Prophet, a. s.
كان شاه ولي الله الدهلوي - وهو عالم هندي كبير عاش في القرن الثامن عشر - من رواد الفكر الإسلامي التجديدي. ومما تميز به هذا العالم دراية واسعة للعلوم الإسلامية والتعمق والروح التحليلية والإتقان في اللغة العربية مما مكنه من تصنيف مصنفات لقيت استجابة واسعة من القراء في زمانه وفي الأزمنة اللاحقة على حد السواء. ومما تلاحظ فيه روحه التحليلية ملاحظة خاصة كتابه «الإنصاف في بيان أسباب الاختلاف» والذي بين فيه أسباب نشأة الاختلاف في الإسلام. والفصل الأول من هذا الكتاب خصصنا له في المقالة مبلغا غالبا من الاهتمام. وأتى المؤلف في هذه المقالة أيضا بالكثير من الأخبار المتصلة بحياة هذا العلم الرائد في الفكر التجديدي بين مسلمي الهند وبذكر مواقفه بخصوص الاختلاف الواقع بين أصحاب النبي صلى الله عليه وسلم
Veliki učenjak Indijskog potkontinenta iz 18. stoljeća Šah Velijjullah ed-Dihlevi je začetnik reformatorskih ideja. Karakterišu ga veliko poznavanje islamskih nauka, akri-bičnost, analitičnost, ali i dobro poznavanje arapskog jezika što mu je omogućilo da piše djela koja će se tada, ali i sada mnogo čitati. Njegova analitičnost se može naročito primijetiti u njegovom djelu El-Insaf fi bejani esbabi-l-ihtilaf koje pojašnjava razloge nastanka razilaženja u islamu i čijim smo se prvim poglavljem, između ostalog, u ovom radu pozabavili.

An objective study of Indian Sufi literature, surprisingly enough, reveals that many early Islamic figures of India who were spiritually-inclined and inspired by Sufism, are mistakenly taken today as the ideologues of Wahhabism in India. Regrettably, our collective negligence and intellectual stagnation have concealed the pioneering contributions of great Indian mystics in the pursuit of spiritual enlightenment, human welfare and common goodwill. Those loudly claiming to represent the Sawad-Azam (mainstream Muslims) should take cognizance of the worrying fact that a large part of the Indian Sufis’ literature has not yet been published and is in the shape of manuscripts for ages. And that is precisely why they are misrepresented and sometimes defamed by the present-day ignoramuses.

One such instance is Imam of Ahle Sunnah (Sunni Muslims), Shaikh Abdul Haque Muhaddith Dehlvi (958-1052A.H), one of the leading Islamic scholars of the 11th century. An epoch-making personage well-versed in the sciences of Islam and practices of Sufism, Shaikh Dehlvi rendered historical contributions to the revival and renewal of faith as well as spiritual guidance of the Indian Muslims. It would be no exaggeration to state that from the early 11th century till the late 13th century, almost all remarkable works and researches on the classical Islamic sciences in India were a result of rigorous intellectual efforts and endeavours made by  Shaikh Abdul Haque Muhaddith Dehlvi.

"In Aqaid e Azeem he try to explain " Sunni Islam" which has six articles of faith known as the six pillars of iman that all Sunni Muslims are united upon in belief,
Reality of one God Allah
Existence of angels of Allah
Authority of the books of Allah
Following the prophets of Allah
Preparation for and belief in the Day of Judgment
Supremacy of Allah’s will, i.e. belief in predestination good or bad is from Allah alone
He is disciple of Hazrat Shah Abdul Qadir Dehlvi and Hazrat Shah Abdul Aziz Dehlvi in reformist school of Hazrat Shah Waliullah Dehli .
He wrote in local language ( Haryanvi Urdu )."

Given that identifying the effective cause can often involve intellectual effort and interpretation on the part of the jurist, not to mention possessing an understanding of the general objectives of the law, what follows below is an adapted and abridged chapter on this topic taken from the Hujjat Allāh al-Bālighah (The Conclusive Proof of God) written by Shāh Walī Allāh of Delhi which will hopefully shed light on an alternative and creative way of viewing the illah

Entitled Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah (“The Conclusive Argument from God”), this remarkable text for hundreds of years remained foremost in its discipline and represents the most important work of India’s most important scholar: Shāh Walīullah of Delhi (d. 1176/1762). This encyclopedic reference work is an integrated, systematic approach to the Sharīʿah, extending from this world to the next, across the various spheres of human life, reconciling divine revelation with human reason, combining sociology with theology, the law with spirituality, and more. Dr. Muhammad Akram Nadwi observes, “Without a doubt, this book is the greatest work Muslim Indian scholarship ever produced. This book teaches you ḥadīth, the wisdom behind Allah’s commands, the wisdom behind the Prophetic teachings, and how all the components of Islam are linked together in a bigger picture.” This article represents a translation of one specific chapter—that dealing with various legal issues relating to clothing in prayer. This chapter serves to illustrate the genius of Shāh Walīullah in presenting various unrelated ḥadīth texts into a holistic presentation of the phenomenon of human dress as it relates to the ritual prayer (Ṣalāh). The chapter includes reference to about twelve Prophetic ḥadīth texts organized under seven broad juristic issues.

The political philosophy of Islam is always a subject of controversy. This book examines discourses of Islamic political philosophy in the Indian subcontinent. Abu al-A‘la Mawdudi is regarded as the originator of the idea that Islam should play a central role in the political system. This work investigates whether Shah Wali Allah Dehlawi has similarly applied Islamic principles in the political realm.