POLlTICAL AND RELIGIOUS IDEAS OF SHAH WALT-ULLAH OF DELHI

ShHh Wali-U11Bh of Delhi, who forms the bridge between medieval and modern Islam in India, was born in 1703, five years before the death of Aurangzeb, which marked the collapse of Muslim power and the disintegration of Muslim morale in India. His father Shiih ‘Abd al-Rahim was one of the compilers of Fatawii-i CAlamgiri, the encyclo- paedic collection of religious edicts commissioned by Aurangzeb; he was a follower of the Mujaddidi branch of the Naqshbandi order, 1 but not without a qualified admiration for the monistic doctrines of Ibn al-CArabi. Shiih Wali-U11Hh started as a disciple of his father, but the main influence which shaped his mind was that of the doctors of HijHz: Shaikh Abii Tiihir Muhammad ibn IbrZthim al-Kurdi, 2 under whom he studied hadith in Medina, and Shaikh Sulaiman Maghribi who lectured to him on M5liki jurisprudence, as well as under other Arab scholars like Shaikh al-Saniiwi, and Tiij al-Din al-Hanafi, 3 at a time when his great contemporary, Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab was also studying in these holy cities of Islam, and perhaps among others with these very teachers. 4 The two systems that these two divines of the eighteenth-century world of Islam worked out had the same source of inspiration, going back through the tradition of the study of hadith in unmystical Hijiiz to the orthodox discipline of Ibn Taimiyyah, 5 and though it is difficult to establish any theory of mutual influence of either on the other, their two systems did come closer, if not actually merge in the Indian Islam of the nineteenth century.

Like his Arab contemporary, Shah Wali-Ulliih was conscious of the religio-ethical disintegration of Islam in general, and therefore chose Arabic rather than Persian as the language for Huj ja t Allbh al- Bdighah, his major contribution to theological dialectics, to rehabilitate the theory and practice of orthodox Sunni belief. To this end he relied much more on the Miiliki 6 than the Hanafi 7 approach to hadith, regarding it as the most distinguished among theological sciences and their source,S because the sunnah of the Prophet was a historically stable factor and could undergo no change. 9 In Muslim India, where the approach to religion had been either mystical, or traditional and

Shih Wali-Ullih, A l - J w J a l - la f i f , Delhi, 189, p. 27.

Cubaid-U11ih Sindhi, Shah Wali-Ullih aur unki siydsi takrik, Lahore, 1952,

Shaikh Muhammad IkSm, Rzid-i Kawthar, Karachi, n.d., p. 335. Sindhi, op. cit., pp. 7-9.

op. cit., p. 28.

P. 7.

* Shiih Wali-Ullih, Al-Musawm? and Al-Mzqaf fd , commentaries on MHlik’s

Muhammad Iqbil, Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam, London,

8 Shiih Wali-Ullih, flujjat Allah al-Bdlighah, Karachi, n.d., Vol. 11, pp. 1-2.

al-Mawatta3.

1934, P. 92.

op. Cit., VOl. I , p. 33.

22

IDEAS OF SHAH WALT-ULLAH 23

based primarily on fiqh (religious law), this was the establishment of a new religous discipline, which had been introduced already in the seventeenth century by Shaikh ‘Abd al-Haq Muhaddith Dehlavi, also in the tradition of Hijfizi scholarship, but needed much more powerful intellectual treatment. This it received in the hands of Shah Wali- Ullsh.

Historical circumstances helped in this process. So far the religious schools in India had emphasized the study of fiqh to meet the Muslim state requirement of training q$is for judicial appointments. With the collapse of Muslim power this economic stimulus declined; and the static formalism of the study of traditional Muslim jurisprudence could hardly be expected to revitalize the soul of a decadent community. By the beginning of the eighteenth century the two great S G f i orders of the Mughal era, the Naqshbandi as well as the QPdiri, had lost their spiritual dynamism. Sfifism could no longer be relied upon as in the days of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi when Indian Islam was facing the challenge of syncretism but had not actually entered the stage of decadence and degradation. ShZh Wali-Ullih’s contribution to the re- quirements of religious re-thinking in the early eighteenth-century Muslim India was, therefore, subordination of Muslim jurisprudence to the Prophetic tradition (hadith) on the one hand, and a total ab- sorption of the remnants of various Sfifi disciplines into orthodox Islam on the other. He pointed out that the era of Prophetic revelations was followed by the age of mystic revelations beginning with CAli and reaching its culmination in the writings of Ibn alJArabi. 10 He then proceeds to reconcile 11 Ibn aLCArabi’s doctrines of ontological monism with the stress on phenomenalogical monism in the teachings of Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, the acknowledged precursor ( a r k ) 12 of his own line of religious and political, if not mystical, thinking. 13 To check the spiritual decadence of Islam in his age Shah Wali-Ullfih completed the work begun by Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi, the channeling of the streams of Sfifi spiritual heritage into Islam, reorientated on the basis of the Prophet’s traditions. This also involved a composition of Siifism’s internal differences of doctrine and practice, and a synthetic merging of the Siifi disciplines of India into one. 14

His sense of mission to face the challenge of the time led to his self-identification with the qd’im al-zam4in, 15 the religious pivot of the age, a conception which restates more modestly the hierarchical spiritual role of the Qwtb 16 and the more ostentatious one of qayythn as

I lo Sh5h Wali-Ullfih, A-Tafhimat al-Zldhiya, Delhi, n.d., p. 122. l1 Sh5h Wall-UIIBh, Satcat, Delhi, 18go; AItdf al-Quds, Delhi, 1889, pp. 4-21, l2 Sindhi, op. cit., p. 81. l3 Sh5h Wali-Ullsh‘s Al-Khayr al-Kathir, Lamcdt, and at-Quwl al-Jarnil. l4 IkrZn, op. At., p. 362.

l6 Muhyi al-Din ibn al-CArabi, al-Futzi&t al-Makkiyah, Bulaq, A.H. 1293, Vol. I, p. 196; Vol. 11, pp. 7-11; Vol. IV, p. 95; also Sayyid Muhammad ibn

Shsh Wali-Ullsh, FuNd al-flaramnyn, pp. 62, @.

24 THE MUSLIM WORLD

developed by Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi. 17 The role of the qa’im al- zaMn is related to the dual nature of khilafat, which can be either external (zahiri) or internal (batini) . Whereas the external khikfat should occupy itself with the duties of the administration and defense of religious law, the internal khihifat is entrusted with the responsibility of giving a direction to the culam&J, the rationalists, the legists and the Siifis. As the qB3im al-zamcin of his own particular age, he considered it to be a part of his mission to restore the solidarity of the ummah by emphasizing a formula of compromise based on whatever was commonly accepted by the various sects of Islam, and by force of con- ciliatory logic to blur the dividing line between the mystic and the theologian, between the Mu‘tazilite and the Ashcarite; 18 but even more specially between the four orthodox schools of law in Sunni Islam. 19 In the midst of its weaknesses and the challenges it faced in the eighteenth century, Islam had to be liberal, resilient, tolerant and composite. In the view of ShPh Wali-Ullih anyone who had once pro- fessed to be a Muslim remained so, whatever his sins or failings. 20

According to Shlh Wali-Ullih, all prescriptions and prohibitions of religions have one of the following ends in view: either the culti- vation of self, or the propagation and strengthening of religious life, or the service and organization of human society. 21 Since these are the ends of the religious law, it follows that any particular formulation of the religious law has a relative rather than an absolute value, and has as such no finality. A Sunni who follows, for example, Abii Hanifa, would be well within his rights if he preferred the authority of other imams on a point where either the QuPLn or the hadtth has a clear injunction to the contrary. No jurist can be or can have a sub- stitute for the unquestionable authority of the Qur’5n and the Pro- phetic tradition, 22 which are the only two infallible sources of religious law. Speculative reconstruction (ijtihad) 23 is therefore the basis on which a revitalized understanding of religion is possible, rather than imitation (taqlid) which owes its origin to a forced choice between the conflicting views of the jurists. 24

I j t i h d , in his view, is an exhaustive endeavour to understand the derivative principles of religious law. They can be derived from four sources, the Qufln, the sunnah, the consensus of Muslims, and by the application of the principle of analogy. 25 He accepts al-RZfiCi and

JaCfar al-Makki, Bahr al-macdni ; Shams al-Din Ibrfihim Muhtasib-i Abrkohi, MajmaC al-bahrain, BibliothPque Nationale, M S persan 122, pp. 507-8.

lT Ikrgm, op. cit., pp. 191-2.

so V u j j a t Allah al-Bcilighah, I , p. 386. 21 Op. cit., I, p. 284.

24 Hujjat Allah al-Balighah, I , p. 358. 26 ShPh Wali-UlEh, CZqd al-lid fi Ahkdm al-Zjtihdd w’al-Taqlid, English

18 op. cit., pp. 341-2. 10 op. cit., p. 343.

22 Op. cit., I , pp. 361-2. SMh Wali-Ullih, AI-Mwaf fd , p. 11.

translation by Daud Rahbar, T h e Muslim World, 1955, pp. 346.

IDEAS OF SHAH WALT-ULLAH 25

al-Nawawi’s classification of mujtahids (speculative thinkers) into two categories: the “permanent” (mustaqill) and the affiliated (mun- tasib), the latter relying upon the former, who follow the Prophetic traditions as narrated by the Prophet’s companions or their succes- sors. 26 The permanent mujtahid reinterprets the fundamental prin- ciples of religious law and re-examines the decisions of his predeces- sors. 27

The necessity of the ever-new “permanent” speculation arises because of the progress and expansion of religious and human society, which is faced with new problems in a new age and in a new milieu. Sh5h Wali-Ulllh‘s dynamic conception of the role of +&id is a natural reaction to his realization of the element of growth and change in human society. “The prophetic method of teaching, according to ShHh Wali-Ulliih,” explains Iqbll, “is that, generally speaking, the law revealed by a prophet takes special notice of the habits, ways and pecu- liarities of the people to whom it is specifically sent. The prophet who aims at all-embracing principles, however, can neither reveal different principles for different peoples, nor leave them to work out their own rules of conduct. His method is to train one particular people, and to use them as a nucleus for the building up of a universal sharfCat. In doing so he accentuates the principles underlying the social life of all mankind, and applies them to concrete cases in the light of the specific habits of the people immediately before him. The sharZcot-values (u&Tm) resulting from this application ... are in a sense specific to that people; and since their observance is not an end in itself they cannot be strictly enforced in the case of future generations.”28

Shah Wali-U11Bh further points out that, in the majority of cases of ijtihdd, the truth lies between two extremes of difference of interpreta- tion by jurists; that a broad outlook is preferable for the expression of opinion in religious matters; that unreasonableness in religious argu- ment can lead to disastrous results; and finally he agrees with cIzz al-Din CAbd al-Sa&m that a mujtalzid should normally respect the consensus of other ‘ulama3.29 The mujtahid has also a responsibility and a mission in relation to non-Muslims : force cannot compel people to accept Islam, as they would revert to their ancestral faith in the same or a succeeding generation when they have an opportunity; the mujtahid should persuade them into acceptance of Islam by precept and example. 30

The emphasis on ijrtilzdd is ShPh Wali-U11Ph’s main contribution to modernist speculative thinking in Muslim India. His own method of induction and argument was classical; but he is generally regarded as

26 op. cit., p. 348. 21 Op. cit., p. 350. 2s Iqb21, op. cit., p. 163; Bujjat Alldh al-Bdighah, I , p. 223. *O Iqd al-Jid, p. 358. 30 yujjab Allah al-Bdlighah, I , pp. 258, 387.

26 THE MUSLIM WORLD

the first Indian Muslim “who felt the urge of a new spirit in him.” 31 “Time has come,” wrote Shih Wali-Ullih in the introduction to Hujjat Allah al-Bdlighah, “that the religious law of Islam should be brought into the open fully dressed in reason and argument.”32 For him “reason and argument” had perhaps a more traditional significance, but they inspired the formula of neo-Muctazilite modernism of Sayyid Ahmad Khln, who had received his early education in the seminary of Shih Wali-Ullih‘s successors in Delhi, of Shibli’s scholasticism and of “religious reconstruction” in the thought of Iqbil. In his exegesis of the Qur’ln, which raised such a storm of controversy, Sayyid Ahmad Khln leans heavily on the work of Shih Wali-Ullih. The more clas- sical influences of Wali-Ullihi concepts of ijtihdd are reflected in the work of the culamd7 of Deoband whose religious ideology was directly shaped by his school.

It was the speculative attitude of mind, in the background of the challenge of the spiritual collapse of Muslim society in India in his age, that led Shih Wali-Ullih in opposition to the bitter polemics of orthodox culama“ to translate the QurJin into Persian. His object was primarily to convey the word of God in translation to the average educated Muslim; and secondarily to break the monopoly of the theo- logian, who had become petty-minded, far too preoccupied with ex- ternalities of ritual, converting himself into the Muslim counterpart of the Hindu Brahman. It is true there had been an earlier Persian rendering of the QuI35n in India by Qadi ShahPb al-Din Daulatibldi; but it was more in the nature of a commentary than a translation. Shah Wali-Ullih simultaneously initiated a movement for the intellectual appreciation of the QuPln by the layman by founding in 1743 a school where QurJin and hadith were taught under his personal direction and by writing a treatise on the problems of translating the QurJin 33 and a book on the science of Qur%nic exegesis. 34 His son Shah RafiC al-Din translated the QuFin into Urdii for the first time. This was a literal rendering and was followed by a more idiomatic Urdii ren- dering by another of his sons Shah CAbd al-Qidir.

I1 At the same time Shih Wali-Ullih was studying the structure, and

formulating a theory for the preservation of Muslim society in general and the Muslim community in particular. He divided the history of the growth of human society into four stages. The first of these stages (irfifdqat) is that of primitive society which has a minimal code of social behaviour; the second stage is marked by the growth of urban society which is first led as a good state by its philosophers, but later

31 IqMl, op. cit., p. 162. 32 fl%jjat Alliih al-Biilighah, I, p. 4. 35 Sh5h Wali-Ulliih, Al-Muqaddimatu f i Tarjumat al-QurUn al-Majid. 34 Sh5h Wali-UllZh, al-Fawz al-Kabir fi Upil al-Tafsir.

IDEAS OF SHAH WALI-ULLAH 27

degenerates into factions and needs centralized control; this necessitates the third stage, that of monarchy to establish order in the place of chaos; and the final stage is that of the universal state which requires a khalifa, with effective authority to hold down various rulers of the decadent civil society. 35

This conception of a universal khildfat is a distinct departure from the tradition of Indo-Muslim religious scholarship, which had been either indifferent to the question or tended to confine it to the first four holy caliphs, regarding the Umayyads and the CAbblsids as mere monarchs. 36 According to Shlh Wali-Ulliih the right to universal khihfat is confined to Quraish37 but not exclusively to the Banii Hiishim,38 a ShafiCite view which accepts as legal the Umayyad caliphate but leads to the negation of the Ottoman claim. The caliph’s duties are two-fold: to protect Dar al-Islam from external aggression, and to be an overlord over Muslim monarc‘hs with effective concentra- tion of power in his hands to see that they administer justice according to the tenets of Islam and do not indulge in civil strife. The responsibi- lities of the caliph involve an ideal role, and his character and govern- ment have to be exemplary. 39 But if a caliph does not combine in him- self the qualities necessary for the universal khildfat, the ummah should not revolt against him and plunge Dar al-Isliim into civil war. 40

Revolt against a khalifa is justified only when he violates the basic laws of Islam. 4 1

Within the religio-political framework of the universal caliphate, monarchy is necessary to maintain peace and order in an individual Muslim state. 42 This determines the detailed outline of the pyramidal feudal pattern of government in the Muslim administration, for the monarch is advised to appoint amirs throughout his kingdom to pro- tect the rights of the oppressed and to enforce the laws of the shariCat and for effective check against apostasy and other major sins. 43 These arnirs should be under the command of amir-i kabir or governor who should have at his disposal an army of 12,000 soldiers. 44 In so far as Muslim administration is concerned, states can be of two kinds: those with a purely Muslim or with a mixed Muslim and non-Muslim population. The latter kind of state requires a more elaborate system of policing and administration of justice. 45

Bzlj jat Al ldh al-Bdlighah, I, pp. 81-2. 36 CAbd al-Haq Muhaddith Dehlavi, Takmil nl-Imdn zeta Taqviyat al-Iqdn,

India Office Library Persian MS, 2765, f . 86b. 37 Hwjjat Alhh al-Bdlighah, 11, pp. 425-6. 3* Op. cit., 11, p.426. 38 Op. tit., 11, p. 425-6. 40 op. Cit., 11, p. 427. 4l Op. cit., 11, p. 428. 43 Al-Tafhimat al-Ildhiya, p. 216. 44 Khaliq Ahmad Nigmi, “ShPh WaK-UIl~h Dehlavi and Indian Politics in

45 Hzljjat A l l i h al-Bdlighah, 11, p. 498.

42 Op. cit., I, pp. 91-2.

the 18th Century,” Islamic Culfwre, Hyderabad, Deccan, 1951, pp. 133-45.

28 THE MUSLIM WORLD

The nature of human society in general, and of Muslim society in particular, is dynamic 46 and congregational. 47 Jihrzd is in consonance with its dynamic nature. I t is like a surgical operation on a festering sore. Its neglect would amount to the neglect of essential self-defense and self-preservation, specially in a world hostile to Islam. 48 The congregational nature of Muslim society is revealed in the assemblies for prayer in mosques, specially on Fridays, when citizens come in contact with the imdm of a city, when Islamic egalitarianism blurs out the difference between the rich and the poor, and the tenets of faith are propagated.49 The Friday congregation has a much greater im- portance for the urban, compared to the rural, Muslim community. 50

The hajj is the greater occasion of the universal Muslim congregation, giving opportunity to the entire ummuh for various communities of Islam to be mutually acquainted and to display collectively the might and power of Islam. 51

I11 To the rapid collapse of Muslim power in India after the death of

Aurangzeb, and to the rise of the anti-Muslim anarchic forces of the Mariithiis and the Jits, Shih Wali-Ullih reacted with pragmatic sensitiveness; and in this reaction he formulated the tradition, for succeeding generations, of Indo-Muslim resistance to the concentration of power in non-Muslim hands. He was deeply conscious of the economic plight of the Muslim masses, and of the breakdown of the politico-economic structure of the Muslim feudal heritage, hitherto sustained by the Muslim imperial power on which all classes of the Musiim population depended for their sustenance. 52 Sh5h Wali-Ullah attributed this collapse to maladministration. 53 In the anarchic pattern of struggle for power after Aurangzeb, Shah Wali-U11ih turned to the time-honored practice of the Siifis to appeal to powerful Muslim nobles to come to the rescue of Dnr al - l shz . He had the immediate precedent of his own father Shih CAbd al-Rahim, who had advised Ni@m al- Mulk I to undertake a holy war against the Margthls. 54 Shah Wali- UllZh pinned his hope of the revival of Muslim power in India on the Rohilla chief, Najib al-Dawlah; 55 to him and to other Muslim gover-

46 op, cit., I, pp. 57, 222. 47 op. cit., 11, p. I&. * Op. +t,, 11, 480, 482, 487. 48 Op. cst., 11, pp. 100-3. so Op. cit., 11, p. 103. 61 OP. cit., 11, p. 180. s2 sh&h Wali-UlEh‘s letter to Ahmad Sh5h Abal i , in Shah Wali-Ullcih kr

ss Op. cit., pp. 41-44. 64 Sayyid Sula idn Nadvi’s introduction to Abu’l Hasanit Nadvi’s Sirat-i

66 Qudrat-Ulliih Sambhali, Jdm-i Jahan Numd, MS in the library of JamiCa

SiyaSi Maktabdt, edited by K. A. Nigmi, Aligarh, 1950, p. 51.

Sayyid Ahmad Shahid, Lucknow, n.d.

Millia Islamia, Aligarh, quoted in op. cit.

IDEAS OF SHAH WALT-ULLAH 29

nors like Ni+m al-Mulk and Tlj Muhammad Khln Baloch he wrote letters of invitation to jihad and of assurance that the defeat of ele- ments hostile to the Muslim was predetermined, but that it could be realized as a fact only if the Muslim governors made a concentrated military effort. 56 As the Muslim nobles proved incapable of checking the rise of Mariithii power and Jiit depredations, ShZh Wali-Ulllh looked up to Ahmad Shah Abdiili, the ruler of Afghiinistin, to channel his incursions into India into an organized expedition to liquidate the power of the Marithiis and the Jiits whose military potential was after all not formidable. 57 He cautioned Abdiili that his invasion of India should not be destructive to Muslim property or prosperity as Nldir Shzh‘s had been.58 He argued that if forces hostile to Islam were allowed to grow unchecked, they would reduce Islam in India to a position in which the Indian Muslims would “become a people without any knowledge either of Islam or paganism.” 59 It can be inferred that in shaping the alliance between Abdlli and Najib al-Dawlah, 60 and specially in the former’s organization of the campaign which resulted in the crushing defeat of the Margthii confederacy at Plnipat in 1761, these letters of Shih Wali-Ulllh may have played some part.

On the other hand Shlh Wali-Ullah’s attitude to other religions was quite tolerant. He admitted that the essence of all religions was the same, and that all of them enjoined similar basic social codes. 61 But a religion could become corrupt by the practices and innovations of its followers; and then it is superseded by another religion. 62 This was a law of the spiritual history of mankind to which Islam could not have been an exception but for the logical necessity of a final religion which supersedes all previous religions. 63 The danger to this role of finality which Islam has in tlie history of religions is one of syncretism, of mixing doctrines and teachings of other religions with its own. This is a general weakness which new converts to Islam, specially in India, introduce into its faith and practice. 64 To justify the continued use of pagan practices these converts seek the support of weaker authorities in the traditions of hadith; they even invent false hadzth. 65 Utmost care is therefore required to keep free from shirk, from association of all kinds with Divine Unity, Divine Will and Divine Power, from all traces of anthropomorphism, and from all concepts which imply paral- lelism between Divine Attributes and Qualities and those of the

58 Siydsi MaktGbdf, pp. 60, 63-4, 65, 85.

59 Op. cit., p. 52. FJO Sindhi, op. cit., pp. 51-2, 60.

e2 Op. cit., I, p. 191.

e4 ShPh Wali-Ulkih, al-Baldgh al-Mubin, Lahore, 1 8 9 , p. 2. 86 Hujjat Alldh al-Bdlighah, I, p. 264.

“ op. Cit., pp. 47-50. 68 op. cit., p. 52.

Hujjat Alldh al-Bdlighah, I, p. 182.

0). Cit . , I, pp. 253-4.

30 THE MUSLIM WORLD

created. 66 ShPh Wali-UllPh‘s movement of purification of Islam from “association” is parallel to Wahhiibism, although it avoids its extremism by a process of sublimation which is monistic in origin, and which condones such minor deviations as belief in the intercession of the Prophet, 67 or visiting saints’ tombs provided there is no danger of tomb-worship which in India he regarded to be an evil parallel to Hindu idolatry, and to have been borrowed by Muslims because of their contact with the Hindus. 68

This intellectual rejection of the eclectic or superstitious elements borrowed from Hinduism developed into a strong tradition of re- formism in the school he founded in Delhi and by the movement of the Mujshidin led by Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi, but spiritually nourished by his own successors. This movement also continued the Wali-UllHhi mission of jihad to restore Muslim power in India, and organized itself, though on a minor scale, against the Sikhs and to some extent against the British. His school at Delhi, directed after him by his son ShHh =Abd aLCAziz and his grandson ShPh Muhammad Ishsq, became the nursery of the two divergent movements of modern Indo-Muslim thought: orthodox Deoband and modernist Aligarh and Nadvat al- culam53. Islam in India and Pakistan today still bears the stamp of his synthetic approach to various schools of Muslim law, and his cautious but firm approach to ijtihad.

School of Oriental and African Situdies London

Azrz AHMAD

Sh5h Wali-Ulllh, Tuhfat aZ-Muwah)zidin, Delhi, 1894, pp. 1-3, 6-7, 14-29; el-Baldgh al-Mubin, pp. 2, 6 ; Yujjat A l l i h nl-Bdlighah, I, pp. 124-5, 128; 11, P. 284. 67 Tuhfat al-MGw&&din, pp. 10-12. 6s Al-Balagh al-Mubin, pp. 2-3, 6.