Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān’s Library 211
bidaʿ, he added that his source was Ibn Taymiyya or Ibn Qayyim
al-Jawziyya, but without mentioning any exact title.^154 Of relevance
in this regard, however, ist the Kitāb Iqtidāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm fī
mukhālafat aṣḥāb al-jaḥīm (Following the Straight Path Against the
Proprietors of Hell).^155 This book was especially famous for its argu-
ments against celebrations on the Prophet’s birthday (mawlid) and
many other customs, which the author and the Ahl-i Ḥadīth both
regarded as bid ʿa.^156 So it is definitely no coincidence that one of the
most popular works of Indian reformist literature is also called al-ṣirāt
al-mustaqīm.^157
Another work by Taqī al-Dīn Ibn Taymiyya was Risāla fī Bayān
al-amr bil-maʿrūf wa-nahy ʿan al-munkar (Treatise on the Explanation
of Commanding Good and Forbidding Evil). This formula refers to a
Koranic command (3:104) to “command the good and to fight evil”.
Later on, the institution of “verification” or “balance” (ḥisba)^158 was
nishāniyān (Signs of the Hour), translated by Muḥammad Muqīm b. Ḥāmid
ʿAlī Fayḍī, Delhi 2003.
154 Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān, al-Idhāʿa, p. 109.
155 Idem, Silsilat al-ʿasjad, p. 84, no. 249. Memon, Muhammad Umar: Ibn
Taimiyya’s Struggle Against Popular Religion. With an Annotated Transla-
tion of the Kitāb iqtidāʾ al-ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm fī mukhālafat aṣḥāb al-jaḥīm, The
Hague 1976.
156 Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān considered the celebration of the mawlid as “waste of
money” (isrāf). For the Ahl-i Ḥadtīh’s teachings concerning the mawlid, see
Preckel, Islamische Bildungsnetzwerke, pp. 462–464. For general debates on
the celebration of the mawlid see Kaptein, Nico J. G.: Muhammad’s Birth-
day Festival. Early History in the Central Muslim Lands and the Development
in the Muslim West until the 10th/16th Century, Leiden 1993; Holmes Katz,
Ma rion: The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, Leiden 2007, p. 14–15 et pas-
sim; Nagel, Tilman: Allahs Liebling, München 2008, p. 153–158 et passim.
157 See the chapter on the Ṭarīqa-i Muḥammadiyya. Clearly, the title is an allusion
to the first sura of the Koran, the fātiḥa, which, according to the Ahl-i Ḥadīth
is an important part of the prayer. They were even of the opinion that “there
is no prayer without the fātiḥa” (lā ṣalāṭ illā bil-fātiḥa). Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān
wrote a tafsīr of the fātiḥa, which is available as an unpublished manuscript
from his private library in Lucknow.
158 For the translation of Ibn Taymiyya’s work on the ḥisba, al-Ḥisba fī al-Islām
(The ḥisba in Islam), see Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī al-Dīn: Traité sur la Ḥisba/
al-ḥisba fī al-islām aw waẓīfat al-ḥukūma al-islāmiyya, translated by Henri
Laoust, in: Revue des études islamique 52 (1984), pp. 17–208; Ibn Taymiyya,
Taqī al-Dīn: Public Duties in Islam. The Institution of the Ḥisba, translated
by Muhtar Holland, Leicester 1982; for more on the ḥisba in general and at
several courts, see Vikør, Knut S.: Between God and the Sultan. A History of
Islamic Law, London 2005, pp. 195–198; on the institution of the muḥtasib see
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