198 Claudia Preckel
should be interpreted other than “sitting on the throne”. God’s attri-
butes must be characterised as they were described in the Koran, they
had to be accepted without any qualification (bi-lā kayf). In accor-
dance with Ibn Taymiyya and following Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal, scholars
of the Wahhabiyya further interpret that istiwāʾ is not identical with
istīlāʾ (capture or seizure) or qahr (force or power), but simply means
“sitting”. The Wahhabiyya keeps up the view that “the quality of the
istiwāʾ is unknown, the belief in it is obligatory, and questioning its
nature is a bidʿa”.^115 Ḥamad b. ʿAtīq criticised that Ṣiddīq Ḥasan inter-
preted the word thumma in Koran (10:3) as “and then” because this
would mean that time was relevant to God. Instead, he said that thum-
ma in this case was not a sign for a certain order, but a simple conjunc-
tion.^116 Thus, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan should interpret it as simply “and” (wa).
After eliminating these mistakes, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s Koran interpretation
would be in accordance with famous scholars like Ibn Taymiyya or
Ibn Ḥanbal. They had stated that in describing God, the only permis-
sible terms are those already used by God himself or by his Prophet
Muḥammad. Continuing his letter, Ḥamad b. ʿAtīq complained about
the hard circumstances of the times they were living in. He described
the difficulties scholars from the Najd faced in acquiring literature and
books. Indeed, there was a considerable lack of scholarly literature
in 19th-century Najd. There was also a lack of qualified teachers. So
Ḥamad b. ʿAtīq asked Ṣiddīq Ḥasan whether he would accept his son
Saʿd (1862–1930) as a student of Hadith. If Ṣiddīq Ḥasan accepted, Saʿd
could start his journey to Bhopal within a short time. Indeed, Saʿd b.
Ḥamad travelled to India in 1881. In his letters to his family, he com-
115 For a detailed view on this question see Ibn Bāz, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: Bayān of the
Madhhab ahl al-sunna fī al-istiwāʾ (Explanation of the People of the Sunna’s
Teachings of the istiwāʾ), in: Majallat al-Buḥūth al-Islāmiyya 8 (1403/1983),
pp. 169–172.
116 The interpretation of this Koranic verse also caused the famous Ahl-i Ḥadīth
scholar Thanāʾullāh Amritsarī problems within his own movement. In addition
to his position on the istiwāʾ the scholars of the famous Ghaznawī family, who
had a dense commercial network in today’s Saudi Arabia, referred to his denial
of certain Koranic miracles and his neglect of the exegetical traditions to bolster
their claim that he was a heretic. For this controversy, see Riexinger, Sanāʾullāh
Amritsarī, pp. 338–417; idem: How Favourable is Puritan Islam to Modernity?
A Case Study on the Ahl-i Hadis in British India, in: Gwilym Beckerlegge (ed.):
Colonialism, Modernity and Religious Identities. Religious Reform Movements
in South Asia, New Delhi and New York 2008, pp. 147–165.
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