180 Claudia Preckel
blind acceptance of other scholars’ opinions (taqlīd) and who held
their main proponent Ibn Ḥazm in special esteem. Like Ibn Ḥazm and
al-Shawkānī, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān denied the legacy of those decisions
based on the taqlīd, which was regarded as “full of raʾy”, i. e. free rea-
soning. No consistent opinion on scholarly consensus (ijmāʿ) can be
traced in Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s works. In some works, he stated that
the ijmāʿ was that of the companions of the Prophet (ṣaḥāba), whereas
in others he wrote that only the ijmāʿ of the four rightly guided caliphs
(al-khulafāʾ al-rāshidūn) could be regarded as valid. Like the Ẓāhirīs,
Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān considered the ijmāʿ of all religious scholars of the
epochs after Muḥammad to be invalid, because this ijmāʿ was “based
on taqlīd”. He regarded this form of ijmāʿ as forbidden, whereas a con-
sensus of the early mujtahidūn was valid. Further, the ijmāʿ of some
scholars of a certain region or a certain time could not be regarded as
binding, because other scholars might decide otherwise. Ultimately,
there was no proof (dalīl) in these decisions.^59 Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s
positive views can be easily assessed in his biographies of Ibn Ḥazm.^60
However, his greatest admiration was for al-Shawkānī himself, whom
he regarded as an “unrestricted mujtahid” (mujtahid muṭlaq) and
one of the most important renewers of the faith (mujaddidūn) ever.
Ṣiddīq Ḥasan stated in his works that his personal aim was to spread
al-Shawkānī’s works and ideas throughout India and beyond in order
to popularize them. He wrote in al-Tāj al-mukallal that it was the
result of his own activities to spread al-Shawkānī’s works through his
own writings in Arabic and Persian language. He stressed: “They will
arrive in all places of the world, near and far.”^61
59 For Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s different positions on the ijmāʿ, see Saeedullah, Life and
Works, pp. 97–98; Preckel, Islamische Bildungsnetzwerke, pp. 331–334; on
today’s Ahl-i Ḥadīth view of Ibn Ḥazm, see for example Sayf, Taḥrīk-i Ahl-i
ḥadīth, pp. 79–80.
60 Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, Abjad al-ʿulūm, part 3, pp. 148–149; for a short biography
of Ibn Ḥazm, see Sayf, Taḥrīk-i Ahl-i ḥadīth, p. 79. It is also no coincidence
that some of Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s works have been reprinted by the publishing
house Dār Ibn Ḥazm, Beirut, since the year 2000.
61 Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, al-Tāj al-mukallal, p. 50.
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