186 Claudia Preckel
he identified, he studied and of which he possessed several books. Like
almost all ʿulamāʾ in the Indian context, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān had studied
the important languages of Muslim Indian culture of his time: Arabic,
Persian and Urdu. Therefore, his library contained works in all these
languages:
Koran reading and recitation, interpretation of the Koran (tafsīr),
principles of Koran interpretation (uṣūl-i tafsīr), tradition literature
(ḥadīth), principles of the study of Hadith (uṣūl-i ḥadīth), names of the
transmitters of Hadith (asmāʾ al-rijāl), classified biographies of famous
Muslims (ṭabaqāt), life stories of the Prophet Muḥammad (sīrat),
Islamic law according to the rulings of the Koran (fiqh al-qurʾān),
Islamic law according to the rulings of the Hadith (fiqh al-ḥadīth),
dogmatic theology (ʿaqāʾid), speculative theology (kalām), Islamic law
(fiqh), inheritance law (farāʾiḍ), methodology and principles of Islamic
jurisprudence (uṣūl-i fiqh), Arabic language (lugha), principles of (Ara-
bic) language (uṣūl-i lughat), morphology (ṣarf), syntax (naḥw), litera-
ture (adab), explanation of meanings and the science of style (maʿānī
wa-bayān), prosody and rhyme (ʿurūḍ wa-qāfiya), logic (manṭiq), phi-
losophy (ḥikma), astronomy (hayʾa), religious ethics (akhlāq), sufism
(taṣawwuf), preaching (mawāʿiẓ), knowledge of eschatology (ʿilm
al-ākhira), works refuting taqlīd (radd al-taqlīd), Persian (fārsī) and
history (taʾrīkh).
All in all, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān enumerated 603 books to have all of
them collected in the various disciplines mentioned above. Some of
these were printed, others were manuscripts or autographs. He claimed
to have all of them in his private library.^80 Many of these books were
printed in Arabic countries or in Istanbul, but he also possessed many
manuscripts. It is fair to assume that the majority of Ṣiddīq Ḥasan
Khān’s works dealt with the disciplines of Hadith and other transmit-
ted sciences (manqūlāt). He listed more than 150 works on Hadith and
related sciences alone, which is more than 25 percent. A closer look at
the Nawwāb’s library shows that Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān possessed not a
single monograph by a Wahhabi author, neither by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd
al-Wahhāb nor by his supporters. It can be assumed, however, that
Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān knew the Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, but he never explic-
itly quoted from it. The book circulated in reformist circles through-
out India these days, and was also printed there from 1889 onwards.
The book was first published in India in 1874, and then several times
80 Ibid., pp. 65–66.
Brought to you by | Nanyang Technological University
Authenticated