WALĪ ALLĀH, SHĀH

WALĪ ALLĀH, SHĀH . Shāh Walī Allāh (ah 1114–1176/1703–1762 ce), Quṭb al-Dīn Aḥmad, was born in a village called Phulit in the district of Muzaffarnagar and was raised in Delhi under the close supervision of his father, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, an erudite scholar-educator, Ṣūfī, and accomplished jurist, and one of the compilers of Fatāwā-i ʿĀlamgīrī, a major work on Ḥanafī fiqh, commissioned by the Mughal emperor Awrangzeb (r. 1658–1707).

Walī Allāh memorized the entire text of the Qurʾān by the age of seven; studied the texts of the Qurʾān and ḥadīth (prophet's sayings); and was initiated into three Ṣūfī orders, the Chishtīyah, Qādirīyah, and Naqshbandīyah, by his father. In 1719, after his father's death, Walī Allāh assumed the responsibilities of full-time teaching and the running of Madrasah-i Raḥīmīyah, founded by his father. He traveled to Mecca and Medina for pilgrimage in 1730, stayed there for fourteen months, studied ḥadīth and Islamic law with prominent Muslim scholars belonging to the Mālikī and Shāfiʿī schools of law, and was initiated to the Shaṭṭārīyah and Shādhilīyah Ṣūfī orders. These experiences proved to be a catalyst in expanding Walī Allāh's intellectual horizons. The most productive period of his intellectual output started after his return to India, resulting in forty-one major and minor works on wide-ranging topics, including biography, ethics, law, metaphysics, mysticism, and sociopolitical issues that confronted the Muslims of his period.

Walī Allāh was an heir to the intellectual and theological heritage of such Indian Muslim thinkers as Maulana ʿAbd al-Ḥakīm Sialkotī (d. 1657), Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Muḥaddith Dihlawī (d. 1648), Naqshbandī master Khawājah Baqī-billāh (d. 1603), and his teachers in the Ḥijāz. His scholarship reflects the influence of many of the ideas of his predecessors; however, he differed from them in his integrative and analytical approach to various branches of the Islamic sciences, and he devised methods to reconcile conflicting opinions. In his writings he demonstrated that ḥadīth, fiqh, Qurʾān, sunnah, taṣawwuf, and Islamic history were all indispensable for the proper understanding and practice of Islam. He asserted that legislative interpretations ought to be compatible with the needs of a given period, and that jurists ought to express their independent opinion freely.

Walī Allāh lived during a period of rapid decline of Muslim political power. He was convinced of his divinely ordained role in Indo-Islamic society and embarked upon a comprehensive plan for religious renewal of the Muslim community. A serious thinker of the eighteenth century, Walī Allāh took upon himself the role of mujaddid (renewer and purifier of faith) of the twelfth century ah, a master of time (qāʾim al-zamān ), and the pivot and head of the mystical hierarchy (quṭb ). As a mujaddid he was concerned about practical ways of directing and enriching the tradition of scholarship and developing leadership for the community. He was especially interested in training the ʿulamāʾ (singular ʿālim, a traditionally educated Islamic scholar) by devising proper curricula and by spelling out a method of writing Qurʾanic exegesis in al-Fawz al-Kabīr fī Uṣūl al-Tafsīr (written in Persian), rather than writing glosses over the exegeses. With the rise of Shīʿī political power in Northern India, Walī Allāh stressed the importance of proper understanding of classical Islamic history in Izālat al-Khafāʾ ʿan Khilāfat al-Khulafāʾ (written in Persian) and Qurrat al- ʿAynayn fī Tafḍīl al-Shaykhayn (written in Persian). These two books were written not to reject Shiism, but to curb the spread of "innovation [bidʿah ] of Shiism," which had created doubts on the legitimacy of the caliphate of the first four caliphs (632–661) in the minds of the Sunnīs. Based on reasoned discussion, Walī Allāh dealt with controversial issues in Izālat al-Khafāʾ (vol. 1, pp. 8–9). He argued that these caliphs played a crucial role in: (1) the compiling of Qurʾanic text and practicing the Qurʾanic ordinances; (2) establishing ḥadīth as a systematic source of Islamic law; and (3) developing the judicial process and juridical ordinances. To deny the key role of the caliphs in the history of Islam, in his view, amounted to destroying the very foundation of Islamic religious sciences.

Above all, in his monumental work Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah (written in Arabic), Walī Allāh integrated the spiritual and material domains of human life; the dynamic and evolutionary relationship of human beings, life, and the universe; and the relationship of metaphysics, politics, and economics. His emphasis on the need to exercise independent reasoning on religious issues (ijtihād ), his stress on the benefits of making the Qurʾanic text available to the community through translation (a controversial move at that time), and his belief in the power of the prophet Muḥammad's sayings and his practical model (sunnah ) to reform communal behavior and morals made Walī Allāh the forerunner of the modernists and reformers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Madrasah-i Raḥīmīyah served as an institution of learning and research for the shāh and his descendants for over a century and half. Walī Allāh's career as a full-time educator lasted twelve years, until 1730, when he left for Mecca for ḥājj. During his absence and after his return, he assigned teaching responsibilities to a few of his pupils who were trained as teachers, while he himself concentrated on writing works of lasting value. After Walī Allāh's death, his son ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz and his younger three brothers not only managed the madrasah but also brought about changes in the methods and content of instruction. They maintained high standards of scholarship, took interest in social and political issues much like their father, and saw the number of students increase from thirty-five during Walī Allāh's period to many thousands drawn from across India. This institution reached new heights in prominence under the leadership of Muḥammad Isḥāq (d. 1845), who succeeded his maternal grandfather, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, after his death in 1824.

ShĀh WalĪ AllĀh's Legacy

Although today Walī Allāh is ranked as the most influential thinker of the modern period, he was not well-known in his lifetime, even in his home country of India. His works did not become the core of the curriculum even in his own madrasah, and they were not discussed, critiqued, or annotated by his progeny, as was the practice in traditional schools. His ideas, however, became attractive to modernists, reformers, and traditionalists of diverse schools of thought about three generations later. The prominent reformers and thinkers of the nineteenth and twentieth century, such as Aḥmad Khān (d. 1898), Iqbāl (d. 1938), and Mawdūdī (d. 1979), among many others, acknowledged their indebtedness to Walī Allāh. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with Islam becoming a world religion, reference to Walī Allāh's works is a symbol of legitimacy for thinkers and organizations in Indo-Pakistan and abroad.

Bibliography

Alvi, Sajida. "The Mujaddid and Tajdīd Traditions in the Indian Subcontinent: An Historical Overview." Journal of Turkish Studies (Schimmel Festschrift) 18 (1994): 1–15. For a discussion on Walī Allāh's claims of mujaddid and Qāʾim al-Zamān, see pages 7–8.

Baljon, J. M. S. Religion and Thought of Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī, 1703–1762. Leiden, 1986. For details of Walī Allāh's teachers in the Ḥijāz, see page 6; for an annotated chronological listing of Walī Allāh's works, see pages 7–14.

Barakātī, Ḥakīm Maḥmūd Aḥmad. Shāh Walī Allāh aur unkā Khāndān. Lahore, Pakistan, 1973. For the history of Madrasah-i Raḥīmīyah, its leadership, and changes in its curriculum and fortunes until it was closed down in 1894, see pages 80–95.

Barakātī, Ḥakīm Sayyid Maḥmūd Aḥmad. Ḥayat-i Shāh Muḥammad Isḥāq Muḥaddis Dihlawī. Delhi, 1992. This short work is a valuable source for information on the descendants of Walī Allāh, especially Muḥammad Isḥāq, and Madrasah-i Raḥīmīyah and its evolution. Noteworthy are the following points: (1) Shāh Isḥāq received instruction in Torah, Injīl (New Testament), and Zabūr (Psalms of David); familiarity with these scriptures was a prerequisite for the study of Qurʾanic exegesis at the madrasah (p. 22); (2) Sayyid Aḥmad Khān, the towering modernist of the nineteenth century, attended lectures of Muḥammad Isḥāq, along with a large number of men and women in Delhi (p. 30); instruction of girls at his house in the morning was part of Shāh Isḥāq's daily routine (p. 78).

Geaves, Ron. "A Comparison of Maulana Mawdudi (1903–1980) and Shah Wali-Allah (1703–1762): A Pure Islam or Cultural Heritage." Islamic Quarterly 41, no. 3 (1997): 167–186.

Hermansen, Marcia K., trans. The Conclusive Argument from God: Shāh Walī Allāh of Delhi's Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah. Leiden, 1996. For a concise overview of Walī Allāh's life, see Hermansen's introduction; for Walī Allāh's legacy and the claim of various movements and educational institutions in subsequent centuries for connection with him, see pages xxxiii–xxxvi; for a list of Walī Allāh's works and references to those available in English translation and pertinent secondary sources, see pages 479–481.

Iqbāl, Muḥammad ʿAllama. The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam. Edited by M. Saeed Sheikh. Lahore, Pakistan, 1986; 2d ed., 1989. Iqbāl, the great philosopher-poet of twentieth century was deeply influenced by Walī Allāh's thought. He frequently referred to Walī Allāh in this work, as well as in 1,200 of his letters, more than to any other major Muslim thinker. See pages 196–197, note 47.

Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas. Shāh Walī-Allāh and His Times: A Study of Eighteenth Century Islām, Politics, and Society in India. Canberra, 1980. A comprehensive study of Walī Allāh's life and times with the author's slight subjective slant; for an annotated chronological listing of Walī Allāh's works, see pages 220–228; for a discussion of teaching methods and curricula in the eighteenth century, see pages 358–378.

Sajida S. Alvi (2005)