512 Martin Riexinger
of the Ottoman Caliphate, and for this purpose cooperated with the
Hindu dominated Indian National Congress whereas it shunned the
traditionally pro-British Muslim elite.^71 The emergence of the ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz b. Saʿūd as major antagonists of the Hashimites, whom many
Indian Muslims regarded as puppets of the British, led Thanāʾ Allāh to
renounce his earlier anti-Wahhabi stance in 1924. In his publications he
defended their policy which had caused hostile reactions among Indi-
an Shiis and Sufi-oriented Muslims because of the destruction of the
graves of many highly esteemed if not venerated figures from the his-
tory of Islam. When Ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz summoned the Islamic World
Conference in Mecca in 1926 Thanāʾ Allāh headed a delegation of the
Ahl-i Ḥadīth (one of three delegations from India, the other two were
sent by the Jamʿiyyat ul-ʿulamāʾ-i Hind and the Khilafat Committee,
the latter being very critical of Saudi policies). His opponents among
the Ahl-i Ḥadīth at home were shocked because they regarded them-
selves as the true allies of the new guardians of the Holy Places. There-
fore they immediately organised a delegation of their own in order to
counter Thanāʾ Allāh’s attempt to pose as the foremost representative
of their school of thought. They attempted to discredit him by alerting
the Wahhabi scholars to his contentious tafsīr.
Finally the parties agreed to settle their dispute via mediation by the
king. In the meanwhile both had gained eminent supporters. As had to
be expected the Wahhabi ʿulamāʾ as well as Ḥasan b. Yūsuf, the Ḥanbalī
mufti of Damascus, sided with the Ghaznawīs whereas Thanāʾ Allāh’s
position was defended by the most important journalistic ally of the
amīr, Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (1865–1935), the Lebanese born editor
of the Cairo-based reformist magazine al-Manār (1898–1935). ʿAbd
al-ʿAzīz b. Saʿūd avoided to side with one party and issued a declara-
tion in which he ordered them to renew the earlier pact.^72
71 Ibid., pp. 449–458; on this movement in general Minault, Gail: The Khilafat
Movement. Religious Symbolism and Political Mobilization in India, New York
1999.
72 Amritsarī, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān bi-kalām al-Raḥmān (2nd ed.), backcover, repro-
duced in Riexinger, Sanāʾullāh Amritsarī, p. 643; it is worthy to note that in the
context of a refutation of “Shiism and Zaydism” ʿAbd Allāh b. Muḥammad b.
ʿAbd al-Wahhāb (Jawāb ʿalā al-shīʿa wal-zaydiyya, in: Rashīd Riḍā, Muḥammad
(ed.): Majmūʿat al-Tawḥīd, Cairo 1346/1927, pp. 128–159) dedicates a consider-
able amount of attention – an attack on “jahmism” as arch-heresy included – to
the refutation of the allegorical interpretation of the istiwāʾ and other attributes
of God; on Rashīd Riḍā and his relations with the Saudis: Boberg, Dirk: Ägyp-
ten, Naǧd und der Ḥiǧāz. Eine Untersuchung zum religiös-politischen Verhält-
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