2006/01/01 by Hassan Ahmed Ibrahim · 1 citation
Business, Management and Accounting · Social Sciences · #Ancient history #Art #Asian studies #China #Education and Islamic Studies #Fiqh #History #Islam #Islamic Finance and Banking Studies #Islamic Studies and History #Linguistics #Literature #Muslim world #Neologism #Philosophy #Religious studies #Sharia #Sociology #Theology #Urdu
paper · doi:10.1163/156853106776150126
crossref issued 2006/01/01 · crossref published 2006/01/01 · crossref published-print 2006/01/01 · openalex publication_date 2006/01/01 · crossref created 2006/03/08 · crossref deposited 2021/12/14 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/07 · crossref indexed 2026/07/24
Abstract Shaykh Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhāb (1703–1791) and Shāh Walī Allāh (1703–1762) were, indeed, the two key Mujaddis in the entire eighteenth-century Muslim world. Many scholarly and amateurish works were produced in English, Arabic, Urdu and other languages on their substantial achievements, but I am not aware of any independent comparative study of their careers and thought. This paper is, however, just a preliminary attempt to construct such a comparison and contrast through studying some aspects of their colourful lives and intellectual legacies. The discourse contests, in particular, the neologism "Indian Wahhābism", which had been coined by some orientalists to designate the Indian Islamic reformist movement, because, to say the least, it implicitly, but without justification, condemned it as a carbon copy of Wahhābism, and its vanguard, Shāh Walī Allāh, as a replica of his contemporary Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhāb. The discourse suggests that the Shaykh and the Shāh founded and spearheaded distinct, but largely dissimilar, systems and schools of thought in the pre-modernist era that have had far-reaching impacts on subsequent Islamic reformist movements worldwide.