202 Claudia Preckel
(mujtahid muṭlaq). Benjamin Jokisch has shown in some detail that
Ibn Taymiyya indeed practised ijtihād.^127 This made Ibn Taymiyya
a scholar attractive to the Ahl-i Ḥadīth. Today’s Ahl-i Ḥadīth have
active contacts and exchange with scholars from Saudi Arabia who are
adherents of the Ḥanbalī school of law.
The rejection of taqlīd and the method of deducting legal decisions
from Hadiths (al-ʿamal bil-ḥadīth) became the most important issue
for the further development of the Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement in gen-
eral. However, the direct employment of Ḥanbalī works did not play
an important role in this regard. Instead, mainly al-Shawkānī’s works
were translated or commentated: Ṣiddīq Ḥasan’s Arabic work al-Iqlīd
li-adillat al-ijtihād wal-taqlīd (The Key to the Proofs for ijtihād
and taqlīd) is an abridgement of and commentary on al-Shawkānī’s
al-Tashkīk ʿalā al-tafkīk (Casting Doubts about al-Tafkīk).^128 His
Hadith work al-Fatḥ al-mughīth bi-fiqh al-ḥadīth (The Helpful Vic-
tory in the Science of Hadith) is an Urdu translation of al-Shawkānī’s
al-Durar al-bahiyya fī al-masāʾil al-fiqhiyya (The Shining Pearls of
the Questions of Islamic Law).^129 In his Arabic work al-Rawḍa al-
nadiyya (The Lush Meadow), Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān commented exten-
sively on al-Durar al-bahiyya again and stressed that he regarded it as
al-Shawkānī’s most important work in the discipline of fiqh. Further,
his Arabic work Ḥuṣūl al-maʾmūl min ʿilm al-uṣūl (Attainment of the
Hoped for in the Discipline of the Principles of Law) is a commentary
upon and an abridgement of al-Shawkānī’s Irshād al-fuḥūl ilā taḥqīq
al-ḥaqq min ʿilm al-uṣūl^130 (Guidance of Mankind to the Verification
of the Truth in the Science of Principles of Law) and Fatḥ al-bayān fī
al-maqāṣid al-Qurʾān (Victory of Clearness on the Higher Objectives
of the Koran) are in large parts a commentary on and an Urdu trans-
lation of al-Shawkānī’s Fatḥ al-qadīr fī uṣūl al-tafsīr (Victory of the
Almighty on the Principles of Koranic Exegesis). Thus, al-Shawkānī’s
influence on the Ahl-i Ḥadīth was extremely prevalent in these works
on uṣūl al-fiqh, which discuss ijtihād and taqlīd. The main differences
127 Jokisch, Benjamin: Ijtihād in Ibn Taymiyya’s fatāwā, in: Robert Gleave and
Eugenia Kermeli (eds.): Islamic Law. Theory and Practice, London and New
York 1997, pp. 119–137, here pp. 120, 129.
128 Brockelmann, Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur, suppl. 2, p. 819. It might
be supposed that Tafkīk is the title of a book, but this could not be clarified.
See ibid., vol. 2, p. 433 with insufficient bibliographical hints.
129 Ibid., suppl. 2, p. 818.
130 Ibid.
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