Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s Library
The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal^1
Claudia Preckel
1. The North Indian Landscape in the Late 19th Century
At the end of the 19th century, the reception of Arabic Ḥanbalī literature
in India was strongly influenced by the popularization of Ibn Taymiy-
ya’s works in certain scholarly circles in the northern part of the Indian
subcontinent. The number of translations and books written by authors
belonging to the Ḥanbalī school of law (madhhab) increased consider-
ably, and quoting Damascene scholars like Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328
A. D.) or Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (d. 751/1350) became a common fea-
ture in South Asian Islamic literature.^2 One of those groups responsible
for this increase in numbers of Ḥanbalī literature is the Indian Ahl-i
Ḥadīth^3 (People of Tradition). This group was a new scholarly Islamic
movement that emerged in Northern India in the middle of the 19th cen-
1 This paper is part of my German dissertation: Preckel, Claudia: Islamische Bil-
dungsnetzwerke und Gelehrtenkultur im Indien des 19. Jahrhunderts. Muḥam-
mad Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Ḫān (st. 1890) und die Entstehung der Ahl-e ḥadīṯ-Bewegung
in Bhopal, Ruhr Universität Bochum 2005, http://www-brs.ub.ruhr-uni-bochum.
de/netahtml/HSS/Diss/PreckelClaudia/, accessed December 28, 2012.
2 Nizami, Khaliq Ahmad: The Impact of Ibn Taimiyya on South Asia, in: Journal
of Islamic Studies 1 (1990), pp. 120–149, here pp. 125–134.
3 For the Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement, see Preckel, Claudia: Ahl-i Ḥadīth, in: EI^3 ,
vol. 3 (2011), pp. 92–97. For a history of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth from their own per-
spective, see Riexinger, Martin: Sanāʾullāh Amritsarī (1868–1948) und die Ahl-
i Ḥadis im Punjab unter britischer Herrschaft, Würzburg 2004; Nawshahrawī,
Abū Yaḥyā Imām Khān: Hindustān mēn Ahl-i ḥadīth kī ʿilmī khidmāt (The Con-
tribution of Knowledge on the Ahl-i Ḥadīth in India), Lāʾilpūr 1352/1934; idem.:
Tarājim-i ʿulamāʾ-yi ḥadīth-i Hind (Biographies of Indian Hadith Scholars), New
Delhi 1992; Siyālkoṯī, Muḥammad Ibrāhīm Mīr: Taʾrīkh-i Ahl-i Ḥadīth (History
of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth), New Delhi 1995; Sayf, Muḥammad Aslam: Taḥrīk-i Ahl-i
ḥadīth (The Ahl-i Ḥadīth Movement), Delhi 1999.
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