Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s Library 189
attitude towards the Shia.^88 Also, both al-Qārī and the Ahl-i Ḥadīth
were objected to the celebration of the Prophet Muḥammad’s birth-
day (mawlid al-nabī).^89 In several works, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan quoted Ibn
Taymiyya indirectly through al-Qārī. Whereas the majority of Indian
scholars do not mention al-Qārī and his influence on Indian Islam up
to the 19th century, Abū Ḥasan ʿAlī Nadwī (d. 1999) stressed al-Qārī’s
importance for the reception of Ibn Taymiyya:
Then, Mullā ‘Ali Qāri b. Sultān Muhammad (d. 1014/1605) suddenly
appeared on the scene who went to Hijaz for the study of the hadīth
under some reputed scholar [...] His probity and courage led him
to defend Shaikh-ul-Islām Ibn Taimiyah and to boldly affirm that the
Shaikh-ul-Islām was a savant with a pious soul who should be reckoned
among the saints of Islam.^90Testimony); Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, vol. 2, p. 395,
in Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s library no. 87. In this work, al-Qārī criticizes Ibn ʿArabī and
his monistic interpretations of waḥdat al-wujūd and calls it – like Ibn Taymiyya
befor him – Ittiḥādiyya (Believers in the Union/Unity). This refutation of the
theories of Ibn ʿArabī is extremely relevant in the Indian context. In India, the
Sufi orders of the Chishtiyya and the Suhrawārdiyya are very common. Both
of them are recipients of Ibn ʿArabī’s works. The origin of the Ahl-i ḥadīth, on
the other hand, can be seen in the Naqshbandiyya, which spread critical works
against Ibn ʿArabī and waḥdat al-wujūd. On al-Qārī and Ibn ʿArabī further see
Knysh, Alexander: Ibn ʿArabī in the Later Islamic Tradition. The Making of
a Polemical Image in Medieval Islam, Albany 1999, pp. 164, 392. Some Ahl-i
Ḥadīth even refer to Ibn ʿArabī in legal matters. Even Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān held
the view that Ibn ʿArabī followed Ibn Ḥazm in his insistance on ijtihād and
the limitation of the the ijmāʾ to that of the ṣaḥāba. See Preckel, Islamische Bil-
dungsnetzwerke, p. 332 and Riexinger, Sanāʾullāh Amritsarī, p. 149, and idem:
Legalist Sufis and Sufi Legalists in British India, in: Alfonso Carmona (ed.): El
Sufismo y las Normas del Islam. Trabajados del IV Congreso Internacional des
Estudios Jurídicos Islámicos. Derecho y Sufismo, Murcia 2006, pp. 409–420.
88 Al-Qārī, ʿAlī: Shiyam al-ʿawāriḍ fī dhamm al-Rawāfiḍ (The Noble Character
Against the Shia); see Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, vol. 2,
p. 395, no. 40, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s library no. 87.
89 Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, Ḥujaj al-kirāma, pp. 232–233, quoting Ibn Taymiyya
through al-Qārī. Here, he focuses on al-Qārī’s books on the prohibition of
mawlid celebrations, al-Mawrid al-rabawī fī al-mawlid al-nabawī, which,
however, was not in Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s library.
90 Nadwi, Abul Hasan Ali: Saviours of Islamic Spirit, Lucknow 1993 (1st English
ed.), p. 125, here vol. 4, Hakim-ul-Islam Shah Waliullah, p. 125. Nadwi, who
was head of the famous Muslim institution and Islamic university of Nadwat
al-ʿulamāʾ, Lucknow, is regarded as one of the most prolific Islamic scholars
of 20th-century India and often co-operated with Saudi scholars in the Muslim
World League (Rābiṭat al-ʿālam al-islāmī). He was one of the founding figures of
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