Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s Library 209
Ibn Muḥsin wrote a refutation of this view,^149 in which he drew on
the works of al-Shawkānī and his theories on the renewal (tajdīd)
and the end of the world. Like Ṣiddīq Ḥasan after him, al-Shawkānī
had described the emergence of a renewer (mujaddid) in every cen-
tury since the death of the Prophet Muḥammad. The existence of
mujaddidūn was necessary because of the sinfulness of the Muslim
community after they lost their guidance through Muḥammad. The
spread of numerous bidaʿ was a consequence.
This increase of bidaʿ was one of the small and middle signs of the
Hour. In his work Ḥujaj al-kirāma fī āthār al-qiyāma (The Noble
Proofs of the Signs of the Last Hour), Ṣiddīq Ḥasan listed dozens of
bidaʿ that he thought were prevalent in every field of life of Indian
Muslims. For example, he listed several festivals and festivities, in
which he saw a corruption of the true Islamic belief. To him, pre-
paring sweets in the name of the dead and taking them to the graves
was a kind of polytheism (shirk). Celebrating Muslim festivals with
fireworks or other costly things was also bidaʿ. Such festivals could be
regarded as waste of money, which the Prophet Muḥammad would
have condemned. But even worse than this was to celebrate the festi-
vals of other religious communities. Thus, the celebration of Christ-
mas was a “scandalous” act for a Muslim. Ṣiddīq Ḥasan added other
smaller bidaʿ as indicators of decadence, e. g. playing chess,^150 hang-
ing up portraits of people in houses, selling puppies and alcohol and
female forms of immodesty (talking to men who are not relatives,
visiting houses of friends, being on the streets for festivities, not car-
ing about purity regulations^151 and superstition. Here, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan
149 Al-Anṣārī, Ḥusayn Ibn Muḥsin: al-Fatḥ al-rabbānī al-radd ʿalā al-Qādiyānī
(The Divine Victory Against the Qādiyānīs), Delhi 1309/1892. The main pur-
pose of Ḥusayn b. Muḥsin’s book was to proof that the promised messias and
Jesus (ʿĪsā b. Maryam) was one person. For a detailed analysis of this book
see Preckel, Islamische Bildungsnetzwerke, pp. 397–406. For Jesus’ role in the
Islamic tradition see Anawati, Georges Chehata: ʿĪsā, in: EI^2 , vol. 4 (1978),
pp. 81–86.
150 Here, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan quoted Ibn Taymiyya’s Risāla fī Ḥukm al-shaṭranj (Writ-
ing on the Rulings on Chess), which he possessed in his library; see Ṣiddīq
Ḥasan Khān, Silsilat al-ʿasjad, p. 94, no. 361.
151 The Ahl-i Ḥadīth shocked their Ḥanafī opponents by claiming that women
were allowed to read, to quote and even to touch the Koran during their men-
struation. Some Ahl-i Ḥadīth even propagated that such women could per-
form ritual prayers, since the restrictions concerned only fasting, performing
the Hajj and sexual intercourse. Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān denied the necessity of the
separation of women during the menstruation (iʿtizāl-i zann dār ḥālat-i ḥayḍ);
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