Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s Library 187
more already during Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s lifetime. As will be discussed lat-
er, other Bhopalese scholars of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth certainly knew the
Kitāb al-Tawḥīd, since their own works referred to it. Thus it is quite
improbable that Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān simply ignored the book. In his
work al-Dīn al-khāliṣ^81 he referred to the idea of tawḥīd and gave a
refutation of polytheism (shirk). The lines of argumentation were simi-
lar to those of the Kitāb al-Tawḥīd. Some authors do not consider the
Nawwāb to be the author of this book because of several contradic-
tions in content.
5.1. The Yemen Background of Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s LibraryA large percentage of the books in Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s library were by
scholars from Yemen. The majority of the 112 books written by Yeme-
ni authors (42 monographs) were composed by Muḥammad b. ʿAlī
al-Shawkānī (d. 1834). 24 books were written by Muḥammad b. Ismāʿīl
al-Amīr (d. 1769),^82 and Muḥammad Ibrāhīm al-Wazīr (d. 1436)^83 was
the author of seven books. These scholars were the intellectual pre-
decessors of al-Shawkānī, as both of them were defenders of ijtihād
and argued their legal decisions based on the Koran and Hadith. They
were also renowned for their knowledge of Hadith and their fight
against “un-Islamic” practices. Especially the Yemenite commen-
taries on the famous Hadith work Bulūgh al-marām^84 by the Shāfiʿī
scholar Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 1149) drew the special attention of
the Ahl-i Ḥadīth. They claimed that this work was of special impor-
tance because Ibn Ḥajar quoted all the important collections of Hadith
and also listed the traditions promulgated by the founders of the four
81 Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, Muḥammad: al-Dīn al-khāliṣ (The True Religion), Cairo
1959.
82 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 863–873; Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān,
Abjad al-ʿulūm, part 3, pp. 184–185; idem, al-Tāj al-mukallal, pp. 414–416. In
his biography, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān considers him an “independent mujtahid”.
83 Al-Wajīh, Aʿlām al-muʾallifīn al-Zaydiyya, pp. 932–934; Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, Tāj
al-mukallal, pp. 340–342; he also came across Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Shawkānī’s
famous biographical work al-Badr al-ṭāliʿ, vol. 1, part 2, Cairo 1929, pp. 81,
which tried to give a proof that the chain of independent mujtahidīn remained
unbroken in Islamic history.
84 Full title Bulūgh al-marām fī adillat aḥādīth al-aḥkām (Reaching the Objective
Concerning Traditions for Legal Opinions), see Brockelmann, Carl: Geschichte
der arabischen Litteratur, 2nd ed., Leiden 1943–49, here vol. 2, p. 69.
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