Person · scholar & reformer
Shāh Waliullāh
Also known as Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, Waliullah, Shah Wali Allah
The most consequential Islamic thinker of eighteenth-century India, writing at the Madrasa-i Rahīmiyya in Delhi as the Mughal empire collapsed around him. He translated the Qur'an into Persian so that people could read it, argued for ijtihād against blind imitation, and tried to reconcile the four legal schools and the Sufi orders with each other.
- Date
- 1703 – 1762
- Function
- Social reform & movement
- Tradition
- Hujjat Allah al-Baligha; Persian Quran translation
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
Almost every later South Asian Islamic movement claims descent from him — the Deobandis, the Ahl-i Hadith, the reformists and the modernists alike — which is possible only because he argued for so many things at once. His invitation to Ahmad Shah Abdali is the part his admirers pass over.
Connections (1)
- Monastic foundationMadrasa-i Rahimiyya, Delhi
Shah Waliullah taught at the Madrasa-i Rahīmiyya in Delhi through the decades when the Mughal empire was visibly failing, and translated the Qur'an into Persian there against strong objection from scholars who held that translation was impermissible. His sons went further and put it into Urdu. Nearly every later South Asian Islamic movement, reformist and modernist alike, traces itself back to this one Delhi household.
Sources
Wikipedia, “Shah Waliullah Dehlawi”. The subject’s own writings where they survive, and the standard biographical literature.
Open Shāh Waliullāh in the repository →