Yasir Qadhi – The Greatest Scholar Of India – Shah Waliullah Al-Dehlawi
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If one were to ask who was the
greatest
alim
that
India
ever produced, Indian Islam ever produced? Without a
doubt, one of the greatest contenders for that
Of course, it's difficult to say one person
for sure, but without a doubt, one of
the greatest
contenders for that list would be Shahwaliullah
Adehlawi.
Shahwaliullah
Adehlawi.
In today's brief khatira, I wanted
to highlight some of this man's accomplishments
and why he is revered by such a
large spectrum of people and some of his
thoughts so that insha Allahu ta'ala we can
benefit from the legacies of some of our
great giants. Shahulullah dehilawi, he was born in
17/03
in India,
and his father was actually the founder of
one of the main madrassas
in, the the city of Delhi, the madrassa
arrahmaniyya.
And in fact, his father was also on
the committee that Aurangzeb
had assigned to write one of the most
important books of Hanafi fiqh. It is called
Fatawa Alamgiriya.
Alamgad is of course the nickname of Aurangzeb.
So it's also called Fatawa Aurangzebi. It's also
called Fatawa Hindiya. This is the most important
book of that timeframe
and Shawuli'Allahu's father was on that committee. So
Shawuli'Allahu was raised in an environment of ilm.
He studied with his father and eventually at
the age of 15,
he took over the teaching of the madrasah.
Can you imagine at 15, he becomes the
main principle and the teacher of the madrasah.
Back then, you know, 15 wasn't treated like
our 15. Back then 15 was treated like
25. At the age of 15, he had
mastered all of the sciences of his madrasah.
He now takes over the position of his
father. And a few years later, he decides
to do something very few people were able
to do at that time, and that is
to go for Hajj. It was difficult back
then to go for Hajj, and Shahulayullah decides
to go for Hajj. And so in 17/30,
Shahwaliullah
made the journey to Makkah. And he stayed
in Makkah and Madinah for more than a
year. This
journey
transformed
Shahwaliyalah
completely.
Had he not gone
on this journey, he would have just been
like any of the other locals.
But you see, when you study from different
sources
and you learn from different
pools of wisdom,
different, you know,
cisterns of knowledge,
what happens is your mind becomes
very different.
And Shahuliyullah
came back a very different person then he
left.
And he began writing
treatises and books that are completely unique in
the history of Islam.
Really when you reach Ahulillah, you're reading a
genuine mind. In Madinah and in Makkah, he
came across so many ulama from so many
different regions. And his most famous teacher was
somebody by the name of Abu Taher al
Qurani. And this individual was actually one of
the few people, the it's at the time
frame, Ibn Taymiyyah was not a household name.
And al Qurani was one of the admirers
of Ibn Taymiyyah.
And so Shawwaliullah
was introduced to Ibn Taymiyyah and the thought
of Ibn Taymiyyah via his teacher, al Qurani.
Also in Makkah and Madinah, he studied the
Qutubas sidda
inside out. And especially the mawtayim Malik, he
fell in love with the mawtayimam Malik. And
so when he came back,
he came back with a love and a
passion for hadith.
And he single handedly
changed the entire discourse of Islam in India.
And he came back admiring
different people.
Ironically, some of those people have different views,
contradictory views. Bashar alayula admired all of them.
His 2 most famous people he admired are
actually contradictory
in their aqeedah and their thought. But this
is what Shawwal did, he synthesized.
Those two people, ibn Taymiyyah and then a
very famous Sufi by the name of Ibn
Arabi. Ibn Taymiyyah did not get along with
Ibn Arabi. Ibn Taymiyyah critiqued, Ibn Arabi, did
not like him at all. But Shawwalullah loves
the both of them. And he synthesized
their thought in a very unique, unprecedented
manner. And
when he returned, he wrote over 40 books
and treatises.
And the most famous of them without a
doubt is Hujatullahi
al balighah. Hujatullahi balighah, the
unique
in Islamic history. Why?
Because he was one of the first people
to write a fiqh book. It is primarily
a fiqh book, but it is not full
of dry evidences.
It attempts to rationalize
and explain the wisdom
of why those rulings occur.
It's a very different the mind is a
mind of an intellectual.
He's not just bringing the standard evidences. He's
trying to explain
Allah's wisdom, jujatallah
al balighrah, the infinite wisdom of Allah Subhanahu
wa ta'ala. And so the book is a
very unique
spiritual fiqh book. And anybody who reads this
can see for themselves when Shawwaliullah talks about
the wisdom,
the hikmah of why Allah legislated what he
legislated. And this is a book that is
unique in its genre. Hardly anybody else has
written it. Also of the unique books of
Shahriyullah
is his first
translation and tafsir of the Quran ever done
in the Farsi language in India.
Nobody By the way, at that time, Urdu
was not the common language. Right? At that
time, the common language was Farsi. Urdu will
come in the generation of his, son and
grandson. Urdu was beginning, but it's still not,
you know, the the common vernacular. It is
Farsi. Farsi is the language of all of
the Muslims of India. And at the time,
can you believe there was no translation in
Farsi? Why?
Because
there was this notion,
which frankly is also found in Europe that
the average Ammi should not read the Quran.
Just for barakah, read it. You should not
read the Quran for hidayah. Leave this to
the clergy class. We should have a separate
category of people and only those people should
understand the Quran. And the rest of you
guys you just read without understanding. And of
course, shawali Allah did not agree with this
at all. And shawali Allah therefore is a
reformer, he's a wujud did. He wants everybody
to read and understand the Quran. And so
for the first time in the Indian subcontinent
history, Shawwalullah
makes a tafsir and a translation
that is meant for all of the Muslims
in the Farsi language. And he called it,
Fatur Rahman, Abitafsir al Quran, which is, the
first commentary ever done in the Farsi language
in India. And of course, by the way,
I get that spirit remained in his family.
All of his 4 sons became ulama and
activists. And the first person to translate the
Quran into Urdu was his son. His son,
Shah Abdul Aziz Shah Abdul Qadr was the
first person to translate into Urdu. Like his
father was the first Farsi, so his son
takes the spirit. And to this day, the
first translation you will find in antiquated Urdu.
This is like the Mirzakal urdu, this is
like the Mirzaqal urdu, which even we have
difficulty understanding. But the first translation was done
by, Shabdu Qadir, which is his son, into
urdu. So shahulillahi laa what is the what
some of the main contributions that he did?
Of the main contributions that he did was
that he attempted to quell
sectarianism
within mainstream
Sunnism.
When he came back, he came back wanting
to unify as much as possible,
and he
demonstrated
tolerance
in fiqh, and tolerance in tasawwuf,
and tolerance in sharia. He wanted the Muslims
to be united as much as possible. And
therefore, he defends
all of the madahib and that was rare.
At the time, there was animosity between the
madahib. Especially between the Hanafis and the Shafirs.
There was actual animosity
and there was actual intellectual,
you know, hatred. Shahulayullah
as a Hanafi, he was a Hanafi. He
actually adopted Shafi'i positions in over 80 issues.
And he championed the defense of the Shafi'i
madhab. And he praised Imam Malik, and he
wrote a mini commentary of the Muwatta.
And he made an excuse for all of
the Imams that why they held wudayal. He
wrote a treatise. He wrote a book in
which he defended
all of the schools of Islam, the Hanafi
shafar Imadikih Hambari. And he explained these differences
are not meant to be contradictory.
These differences because each one wanted to arrive
at the truth in a different manner. Also,
one of the main contributions of Shahawalayla in
this regard is that he integrated between the
Akli and the Naqali sciences. And this is
following Ibn Taymiyyah. Ibn Taymiyyah is also an
a paragon in this regard. The rational and
the spiritual, the rational and the textual. Shahualiullah
wanted to show there's a healthy synthesis. And
that's why much of his work is about
trying to explain the wisdom of why the
Sharia says what it says. One of the
main contributions as well as shawwaliullah
was to sanitize the Sawwuf. This is a
bit controversial here, but the Sawwuf before Shahwali'Allahu
in India had been influenced a lot by
Hinduism. Some of the ideas, some of the
practices, in fact, at many shrines, Muslims and
Hindus worship together because of
and he is an advocate of pure tasawwuf.
He reformed the tasawwuf from before and he
brought forth. You cannot have tasawwuf without following
sharia.
Sharia must be a part of what tasawwuf
is. And he also was against much of
the practices extreme veneration
of the graves, extreme veneration of the saints.
He was against this and he preached against
this that you should not be asking, you
know, the people of the Qabr, you should
not be venerating the Qabr. So his tussawaf
was akhlaqih tarbawi from the Qalb. He didn't
like much of the, you know, mysticism that
was done,
that would be against if you like mainstream
Islam. So shawaliAllahu also at that time, there
was a
notion of wahdatulwujood,
it's a bit advanced here. ShawaliAllahu did not
accept this notion and he attempted to modify
it and bring it into mainstream Islam. Wahdatalwujud
is the notion that there is no existence
other than Allah. We are all a part
of Allah.
And Sha'awulillah did not agree with this at
all. And he tried his best from within
Tussawwuf to reform and bring forth a a
more nuanced understanding that attempted to tame down
this, misunderstanding
that some people have. Also, one of the
main contributions of Shahwari'ullah
is that he wanted to make Islam accessible
to the average person. And this he did
throughout all of his writings. He did not
believe in having an elite class that the
average Muslim should not be aware of the
teachings of Islam. And so he wrote in
a way and a style and even many
of his books are in Farsi and many
are in Arabic fluent Arabic fluent Farsi in
order so that the average person understands.
Also of the contributions of Shahulayullah
is that as a mujaddid and without a
doubt he is a mujaddid. By mujaddid, I
mean he's original thinker. There's no question he
is not following anybody before him. He comes
forth and he is bringing a revivalism.
Of the main issues of Shahwalayullah
that India and all Indian movements owe much
to is he single handedly
brought a love of hadith to India.
Single handedly.
He brought a love of the books of
hadith. And he brought the silsila and isnaads
of hadith with him. It is factually correct
to say that almost every single isnaad and
ijazah of hadith in that land, it goes
through shahwaliyullah adihlavi.
Almost all of the scholars who study the
books of hadith in that land, you go
back and you will find it goes through
shahualiyullah.
I also have a number of ijazat, all
of my teachers that studied from anybody in
India, whatnot, it all goes through shahualiyullah.
You won't find any nisada, or maybe very
difficult to find a nisada that doesn't go
through shahualayullah. And so shahualayullah
introduced a love of hadith and the books
of hadith into the ummah. Now, one point
here, that one thing we said he tried
to unite the ummah and he did in
one aspect.
He was a very ardent defender of sunnism
against Twelver Shi'ism. And he wrote a number
of books critiquing Twelver Shi'ism.
And the reasons for this, it appears Allahu
Alam is that Shawwaliullah is witnessing the decline
of the Mughal Empire. It The Mughal Empire
began to decline after Aurangzeb.
And Shahudullah is seeing the disintegration.
And one of the main causes of disintegration
is political. In the external side, you have
a threat of a leader known as Nadir
Shah. And Nadir Shah was a 12 of
Shia. And internally,
the Mughal Empire begins to divide and many
Nawab Dynasties began to rise up. And one
of the most powerful was the Nawab of
Awadh, the Nawab of Awadh. And the Nawab
of Awadh
was also Itna Aashadi, you know, Twelver Shia.
So it appears that he felt that this
was a necessary thing to do. Allah knows
best, but he does have a very harsh
critique of the Twelver Shia Astrand and he
does not like their theology, which is of
course, he's not the only one, to to
do that. What is I find particularly very
interesting, and this is so profound.
Every
revivalistic
movement after shahualayullah
thinks they are the true inheritors of Shahwalayullah.
And I'm gonna be explicit because this is
an education. I'm not taking sides here.
In India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
there are a number of famous trends. Right?
Every one of them
claims
we are the real followers of Shahriyullah.
He had such an impact
that it transcends anyone firkah or maslak or
madhab. So where to begin?
One of the trends in that region is
known as the Ahliya Hadith trend.
And they are people who follow the hadith
literally. They don't wanna follow the madhhabs directly.
Shahuliyullah's
grandson,
Shah Ismail Shahid.
Shah Ismail Shahid
is one of the main
founders. Actually, technically one can say he is
the founder of the Ahli Hadith Movement.
So Shahwulullah's grandson, Shah Ismail Shahidu actually waged
Jihad against the British. And he died a
shahid in a battle that he was fighting
on behalf of the Muslims against, you know,
the British Empire. A long story is complicated
here, but he died a young age, the
grandson,
fighting against, you know, in his jihad, against,
the the imperialists. And he is one of
the main founders of the movement that eventually
became what we now call
the Ahli Hadis movement.
This is the grandson of Shah Waliullah.
Another grandson of Shah Waliullah,
Shah Muhammad Ishaqaddehillawi
was one of the main teachers of a
person known as Ahmad Raza Khan Barelvi. And
he is the founder of the Barelvi Movement.
And the Barelvi Movement, of course, Ahmad Razakhan
is the founder, but one of his main
teachers is the grandson of ShahwaliAllahu.
And from that we take because Shahwali'Allahu has
such a interesting, you know, collection of books,
you do find aspects of mysticism
that can be interpreted the way that this
group has interpreted it. So Ahmed Ar Zah
Khan studies with one of the grandsons of
Shahwulayullah
and then he founds this movement that is
now common in that region.
A third strand of Indian Islam, which is
the most predominant strand of that region is
of course, Deubandism.
And the founders of Diwbandism,
the founders of Diwbandism,
and that is of course,
Muhammad Qasim Nanatoubi and
Rashid Ahmed Gangohi. The both of them are
admirers of Shawwalayullah.
And they are people who have read Shawwalayullah,
and Shawwalayullah's
love of hadith
has impacted them directly.
Any graduate of Darul uloom, and our own
imam is a graduate of Darul uloom, has
to study the Qutubal hadith. Why? Because Gangohi
and Anatui
having been influenced by Shahwali'ullah
have put the Qutubal Hadith in the curriculum
of Darul Ulum. Nobody before them had done
that. Before the Deoban, the famous institute was
Farangi Mahal. Farangi Mahal did not have Qutubal
hadith. None of the other seminaries had the
books of hadith. After Shawwaliullah,
almost every seminary is gonna study the books
of hadith directly. Shahwulillah has a direct impact
on Dayuband and Dayubandism.
And his books are admired and read by,
by, that as well. So we talked about
the Ahl adis, we talked about the Dubandis,
we talked to the Balaavis. Who's
left? Who's left?
There's one group that's left as well. That
group is people like Sir Sayed Ahmed Khan
and Allama Iqbal.
How do you categorize them?
We categorize them as miscellaneous.
Right? It's true. They are not Afirkah. They
have their own Afkar. They are independent thinkers.
But one can say that these are people
who are emphasizing the aqliyaats.
They're emphasizing, you know, the the rational side
more. And the both of them
admit that they are influenced directly by Shahulayullah.
How so? Because again, I'm being very simplistic.
This is a very quick lecture here. Shahwaliullah
is a fascinating figure and every group thinks
they're interpreting him correctly. And this shows you
he was actually a genius and a reformer
and a Mujaddid. You cannot put him in
a box. You just can't. You know, I'm
gonna be blunt here. All of these groups
are right and all of them are wrong.
Nobody can claim
I am the only heir of Shahu Alaihi'ullah
because he was a complex figure. You can't
just put him in a box and the
groups that came after, they take what they
wanna take and they don't take what they
wanna take. And that's fine. No problem.
But Shahwaliullah
was above any one simple box. And people
like sir Sayedah Mad Khan and Allama Iqbal,
They're able to reference Shawwaliullah
for many of the things that even other
ulama criticize these people for. But in fact,
they have Shawwaliullah before because again, this is
awkward to say, but I will say this
because I want my community and the people
watching. I want
our knowledge of academics and Islam to be
mature. I don't want us to be simplistic
here. Shahualiullah
has many ideas. Some of them are amazing.
Some of them are so so and some
of them are debatable. But see, this is
what happens when you're an independent thinker. This
is what happens. You can't have 90% tajdeed
and reform without some 10%
strange views. This is and we have to
be mature enough to understand this. Right? We
have to have the level of tolerance that
you cannot have shahulayullah
without having some views that are on the
fringe. And I don't wanna mention too many
fringe views, but anybody who knows I'll give
you one simple example. And again, this is
not a defense and it's not a criticism.
I'm being very factual in this lecture, so
that you're aware. For example, shahwali'ullah
believed that the splitting of the moon
was not an actual split.
It didn't actually split up.
He had his theory that
the Quraysh, it was made to appear to
them so. It was an illusion that Allah
did that it was made to appear to
them so. It wasn't an actual splitting of
the moon. Now if somebody says this now,
aoodubillahiu,
your kafirzindigbaalmudil
whatnot, this was shawri Allah's view. And Allama
Iqbal took it. Answers, Amal Khan took it,
and they accepted this point of view because
they felt they have precedents. And he has
his theories and understanding. Again, please don't misquote
me because now the refugees are gonna quote
me. I'm just quoting. Shaawwariullah, guys calm down,
chill. This is one of the problems when
you don't have knowledge, right? You become fanatical.
Anybody who says something you don't on your
radar, you don't understand. But I say again,
every alama,
every mujaddid,
every original thinker, this is what happens when
you are brave enough to break away from
taqleed. You're gonna bring a lot of good
and you know, you might have some views
on the fringe and we have to be
mature enough to accept that. And this is
also what happens when you study with diverse
groups of people because Shawwalayullah didn't just study
from his father's madrasah. He traveled the land.
He studied from And by the way, in
Hajj, in Makkah and Madinah, you have to
understand you heard ulama from all over the
world. It was a global university and he
stayed there for years or more than a
year and a half, he stayed there. So
all the scholars coming for Hajj, he studied
with them from Iraq, from Yemen, all of
this. So he's getting all of these different
interesting ideas.
And he was told towards the end of
his life that why don't you write a
refutation of Ibn Taymiyyah? And he ended up
writing a defense of Ibn Taymiyyah. One of
the first and only defenses in India of
Ibn Taymiyyah, Isha waliullah,
because he was a great admirer of Ibn
Taymiyyah. Ironically,
he didn't agree with everything from Ibn Taymiyyah,
but this is why we admire somebody like
this. He's not a blind follower, and he
took what he thought was good from all
of the great rullamah. And his legacy is
such that it sparked many revivalist movements.
This is the sign of a true leader
and thinker
that people read his works and they're inspired.
So the founders of Deoband are inspired. The
founders of Barirism are inspired. The founders of
sir, sir, I'm amal Khan inspired. The founders
of of of of the hadith are inspired
because this is what happens when you're a
genius and you spark people's minds. So all
of them, they start thinking, they start doing.
And this is what Shahulayullah did single handedly,
without a doubt, before him and after him.
Look at Islam in India. Look at the
intellectual history of India. Single handedly, he sparked
an entire revolution. And I'll give you one
final example, and inshallah with this we'll conclude.
In the 18th 19th centuries, maybe 200 years
ago, the science of hadith
was not studied in the Arab world. I
know it's shocking, but it is factually correct.
And I speak as somebody who knows. I
studied in the college of hadith in Madinah.
I know the history of the sciences of
hadith. In the 19th century,
if you wanted to study hadith,
you would have to go to India.
And that is why scholars from Hejaz,
scholars from Arabia,
some of the
followers of Ibn Abdul Wahab, when they wanted
to study hadith,
they were sent to India, to Delhi, to
the schools
of Shahwaliullah and his sons and grandsons. And
so scholars from Hejaz
and 18,
1900
to study the books of hadith. And that's
what I'm saying. And in the 18, 1900
to study the books of hadith. And that's
why the majority of isnaads of hadith in
the world actually today, not all of them,
The majority of them. They actually go through
India because of shahualliullah
adihlavi. So he's not just a mujaddah for
Indian Muslims. He really created an entire
revolution of Islamic thought and he impacted the
globe directly and indirectly. And he passed away
relatively young in his fifties. In 17/62,
he passed away relatively young. And SubhanAllah, every
one of his sons and grandsons was an
'alim and a lama every one of them.
As I said, one of them goes ahlihhadees,
one of them goes dubandi, one of them
goes bayivi literally like we can say one
of them sparks each one of these movements.
And he left not just his own legacy,
a legacy of family of scholarship. So I
hope insha Allahu Ta'ala that in this brief
introduction, one of the main points I want
to,
underscore is that the diversity of Islamic thought,
the breadth of Islamic thought, and it is
healthy. And I've said this so many times.
It is healthy, all Muslims,
to read from outside of your own school.
And I ask you for the love of
Allah. Don't just think your own Maslak is
the only Maslak of Islam. No. Go like
Shahululillah did and find and listen and read
and you will be pleasantly surprised. Oh my
God. The other groups also love Allah. Wow.
They also pray 5 times a day. Wow.
They're not shayateen in human form. Wow. Just
open your mind, go study and you will
benefit and you will become a more mature
person and you will benefit the ummah more.
And we find this in the thought of
shahuwali'ullah.
And some of the greatest teachers including
my Indian Sheikh, Sheikh Al Adami, Sheikh, Musaf
Al Adami that I gave a whole lecture
about the Hindu convert. Even he said to
me that my advice to you is you
study here and then you study elsewhere as
well. And he literally said to me, it
will broaden your horizons and you will become
a thinker. And at the time, and I
was 22, 23, I'm like, what do you
mean I cannot list the land of Madinah?
He goes, no. If you want to really
benefit, you have to go to different places
and study from different people. And that really
came into my heart and SubhanAllah, I have
benefited immensely from that advice from him and
from many other people. And we see that
in the lives of all of the great
thinkers of Islam. When you diversify
and you listen and you take the wisdom
of all, you end up benefiting a lot
more people. May Allah
bless Shawwaloolah dihlavi and his efforts. May Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us all to be
of those who bring benefit to the Ummah,
which is aqumullah kaiwastalamwalikumumabassullahi
barakatuh.