176 Claudia Preckel
believed that the mahdī would join the “promised messiah” (al-masīḥ
al-mawʿūd), who is commonly identified as Jesus (ʿĪsā), in his fight
against the “Anti-Christ” (dajjāl). After the victory over the dajjāl,
the masīḥ would establish a “kingdom of justice” that would last for
one thousand years. After that, people would be sent to paradise or
hell.^38 The Ṭarīqa-yi Muḥammadiyya considered Sayyid Aḥmad to
be not only a “renewer of the faith” (mujaddid), but also the “rightly
guided one” (mahdī). In the eyes of the Ṭarīqa-yi Muḥamadiyya, the
fact that Sayyid Aḥmad’s dead body could not be found after the battle
of Balakot in 1832^39 was a proof that he was the mahdī. The Ahl-i
Ḥadīth also believed that the Day of Judgement was approaching and
that Sayyid Aḥmad and Muḥammad Ismāʿīl were mujaddidūn. Ṣiddīq
Ḥasan considered himself a renewer of the faith of the 14th century.^40
According to common Sunni belief, there is a “mujaddid at the head
of each century”.^41 Hence, the Nawwāb claimed to be the „mujaddid
of the 13th century”, interpreting the Arabic word for head (raʾs) as
the “end”. Undoubtedly, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan took the teachings about the
mujaddid from the works of al-Shawkānī, who himself had claimed
to be a mujaddid.^42 Ibn Taymiyya was not on Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s list, but
the latter mentioned no mujaddid between the seventh and eleventh
century at all, although he stated that there must have been at least one
mujaddid in each century.^43
Today’s nationalist view of Indian Muslim history, in particu-
lar, constructs an intellectual continuity between Ibn Taymiyya,
Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb, the Ṭarīqa-yi Muḥammadiyya and the
Ahl-i Ḥadīth.^44 For example, the preface of Shāh Muḥammad Ismāʿīl’s
38 See Madelung, Wilfried: Mahdī, in: EI^2 , vol. 5 (1985), pp. 1230–1231.
39 On the battle of Balakot, see Pearson, Islamic Reform and Revival, pp. 41–44;
and Ahmad, The Wahhabi Movement, pp. 55–65.
40 See Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, Iqtirāb al-sāʿa, pp. 116–118.
41 On this subject, see Landau-Tesseron, Ella: The Cyclical Reform. A Study of
the Mujaddid Tradition, in: Studia Islamica 79 (1989), pp. 79–119. This theory
was supported by the famous Hadith “God will send for his umma, at the head
of each century, one who will renew for it its religion” (inna allāh yabʿathu
ʿalā raʾs kull miʾat sana man yujaddidu lahā dīnahā), see Abū Daʾūd, Sunan Abī
Daʾūd, vol. 2, Kitāb al-malāḥim.
42 Haykel, Revival and Reform, p. 194.
43 For this complete list of mujaddidūn, see Preckel, Islamische Bildungsnetzwer-
ke, pp. 432–433.
44 On this phenomenon in India, see Hartung, Jan-Peter: Viele Wege und ein Ziel.
Leben und Wirken von Sayyid Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Ḥasan Nadwī (1914–1999),
Würzburg 2004, p. 216–217.
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