496 Martin Riexinger
Allāh Dihlawī (1703–1763) who, after returning from his studies in
the Hijaz, rejected the Islamic law schools (madhāhib) and the venera-
tion of saints and their tombs.^8 Although the latter already betrays the
influence of Ibn Taymiyya whose ideas he might have encountered as
student of the Kurānī family and the South Asian émigré Muḥammad
Ḥayyāt al-Sindī (d. 1750), his religious thought differs in many aspects
from Ibn Taymiyya’s teachings.^9 In particular he remained deeply
8 Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī: ʿIqd al-jīd fī aḥkām al-ijtihād wal-taqlīd, Cairo 1385
a. h.; idem: al-Inṣāf fī bayān asbāb al-ikhtilāf, Cairo 1950; Baljon, Johannes
Marinus Simon: Religion and Thought of Shāh Walī Allāh Dihlawī (1703–1762),
Leiden 1986; idem: Shāh Waliullah and the Dargah, in: Christian W. Troll (ed.):
Muslim Shrines in India. Their Character, History and Significance, Delhi 1989,
pp. 189–197; Hermansen, Marcia: Translator’s Introduction, in: Walī Allāh: The
Conclusive Argument from God. Wali Allah of Dehli’s Hujjat Allah al-Baligha,
translated by Marcia K. Hermansen, Leiden 1996, pp. xv–xl.
9 Voll, John O.: Muḥammad Ḥayyāt al-Sindī and Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb.
Analysis of an Intellectual Group in Eighteenth Century Medina, in: Bulletin of
the School of Oriental and African Studies 38 (1975), pp. 32–39; Voll, John O.:
Linking Groups in the Networks of Eighteenth-Century Revivalist Scholars, in:
John O. Voll and Nehemia Levtzion (eds.): Eighteenth-Century Renewal and
Reform in Islam, Syracuse 1987, pp. 69–92; Voll’s theory of a reformist network
based on common teachers in the Hijaz has been criticized by Ahmad Dallal
(The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought, in: Journal of the
American Oriental Society 113 (1993), pp. 341–359) due to the neglect of decisive
differences between figures like Shāh Walī Allāh (1703–1762) and Muḥammad
b. ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (1703–1792) and Muḥammad b. ʿAlī al-Sanūsī (1787–1860).
Although this position has its merits, especially with regard to completely con-
trary attitudes to Sufism, Dallal goes to the other extreme by belittling actual
correspondences. Furthermore the incorporation of al-Shawkānī and Ṣāliḥ
al-Fullānī in the comparison would have resulted in a wider spectrum of com-
mon points, Riexinger, Sanāʾullāh Amritsarī, pp. 66–68, 71; that certain issues
relevant for these puritan reformers were discussed in the Ḥijāz is undeniable.
For example the rejection of taqlīd with reference to Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-
Qayyim can be traced back to Muḥammad Ḥayyāt al-Sindī: Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī
al-Dīn: Tuḥfat al-anām fī ʿamal bil-ḥadīth al-nabī ʿalayhi al-salām, adjunct to
Ṣadr al-Dīn b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: al-Ittibāʿ, Lahore 1401/1980, pp. 72–103, 98–99;
Ibn Taymiyya, Taqī al-Dīn: al-Īqāf ʿalā sabab al-ikhtilāf, adjunct to Ṣadr al-Dīn
b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: al-Ittibāʿ, Lahore 1401 a. h., pp. 104–115, here p. 115; Nafiʿ,
Basheer M.: A Teacher of Ibn ʿAbd al-Wahhāb. Muḥammad Ḥayāt al-Sindī and
the Revival of aṣḥāb al-ḥadīth’s Methodology, in: Islamic Law and Society 13
(2006), pp. 208–233, here pp. 223–230). Moreover Dallal’s objection that the
respective reformists did not hold one consistent set of beliefs can not disprove
that they drew inspiration from certain scholars, as Ibrāhīm al-Kūrānī himself
did at the same time hold positions derived from Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn ʿArabī.
And both Ibn ʿArabī’s strong admirer of al-Barzanjī and his fierce detractor
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