Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s Library 207
In the discussion on triple ṭalāq, the Ahl-i Ḥadīth opinion became
very influential in their networks. It seems that they even exerted an
influence on scholars from Najd. After their studies in India, Wah-
habi scholars from Najd started adopting Ibn Taymiyya’s works, fat-
was and treatises on Islamic law, which had not been available to them
before. In their time, Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim had faced
fierce opposition to and much criticism of their related divorce fat-
was. And today, fatwas issued by Saudi scholars like Ibn Bāz^144 and Ibn
ʿUthaymīn (d. 2001) are regularly published in India and thus further
spread the legal methods and specific decisions of Ibn Taymiyya and
Ibn al-Qayyim.^145
6.4. Un-Islamic Novelties and Apocalyptic FearAccording to the Ahl-i Ḥadīth, a great variety of un-Islamic novel-
ties (sg. bidʿa, pl. bidaʿ) characterised 19th-century Indian Muslim soci-
ety and beyond. They perceived bidaʿ as aberrations of “true Islamic
belief”, which will automatically “lead to hell”.^146 The Ahl-i Ḥadīth
Bāz (The Encyclopaedia of the Imam of the Muslims in the 20th Century,
Shaykh al-ʿAllāma ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz b. ʿAbd Allāh Ibn Bāz), Beirut 2007.
144 See a collection of speeches and sermons by Ibn Bāz (on cassette), compiled by
Abū Khadīja ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Salafī, Birmingham 2004. The name Salafī as well
as the place of publication (Birmingham is the European headquarter of the
Ahl-i ḥadīth) supports the view that it is an Ahl-i Ḥadīth publication.
145 See Luqmān al-Salafī, Muḥammad (ed.): Fatāwā barāy-i khawātīn-i Islām (Fat-
was on the Women of Islam), Delhi n. d., where Ibn Bāz and Ibn ʿUthaymīn
are among those extensively quoted.
146 In his works, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān often quotes a famous Hadith: “The worst
thing are these novelties (muḥdathāt), every novelty is an innovation (bidʿa),
every innovation is an aberration (kullu bidʿa ḍalāla), and every aberration
leads to hell-fire.” Whereas the first part of this Hadith can partly be found in
several collections of authentic Hadith (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-ṣalāt, no. 1885;
and Sunan Abī Daʾūd, Kitāb al-Sunna, no. 4590), the last part “and every aber-
ration is in (hell)fire” (kullu ḍalāla fī al-nār) is of dubious authenticity. It
cannot be traced in those collections of Hadith which the Ahl-i Ḥadīth nor-
mally regard as authentic. Although Ṣiddīq Ḥasan was frequently quoting this
Hadith, he supported technological progress and innovations in Bhopal and
India in general. He wrote that he admired the introduction of a postal sys-
tem (intiẓām-i ḍāk) throughout India by the British, steam ships and electric-
ity (Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, Ḥujaj al-kirāma, pp. 219–220). This shows that the
Ahl-i Ḥadīth were favourable to at least some technologies and justified their
use. For Islamic literature on bidʿa, further see Fierro, Maribel: The Treatises
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