UNDERSTANDING THE RATIONALE OF

SHAH WALI ULLAH, SHIBLI AND IQBAL

Muhammad Suheyl Umar

Years back, while preparing a dissertation for the fulfillment of my M. Phil. degree in Iqbal Studies, I had to analyse the contents of Iqbal’s The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam[1] once again. During the course of my readings in the sixth lecture “The Principle of Movement in the Structure of Islam”[2] I observed that, while unfolding his thesis, Iqbal had built his argument on a key-concept borrowed from Shah Wali Ullah on the authority of Shibli Nu’ mani’s Al-Kalam.[3] Further reading revealed that the quotation given in Shibli’s work, on which Iqbal based his views, differed considerably from the original text of Shah Wali Ullah.[4] In fact it was a ‘cut and paste’ kind of extract which Shibli had presented in his usual summarizing style of compilation. The inference drawn therefrom was, in my opinion, not tenable for two reasons. Firstly, it was categorically opposed to the views of Shah Wali Ullah that he had expressed, on the same topic, in “al-Hudud” section of Hujjatullah al-Baligah.[5] Secondly the inference drawn from the ‘manufactured’ quotation altogether changed the perspective of Shah Wali Ullah’s discourse which was confined to a relationship between Shari’ah bi’l jumlah and Shari’ah bi’l itlaq (Principles of Religious law and instances of their application).

Sayyid Sulayman Nadvi, Shibli’s successor and intellectual heir to him in many respects, had earlier expressed his disagreement from the interpretation[6] which Shibli seemed to have imposed on Shah Wali Ullah’s idea.[7]

Later on, we had a chance to present the problem to Dr. Javid Iqbal. After examining the relevant texts of both the authors he commented that Shah Wali Ullah, for what ever reasons, did not articulate the idea in an explicit manner. However, in his opinion, the inference drawn by Shibli and, later on, adopted by Iqbal was correct and represented the real intention of Shah Wali Ullah.

As the readers can surmise, this discussion, apart from its academic or legal value, had a direct bearing upon the on going debate about the immutability/adaptability of the rulings of the Islamic Law and especially the Hudud punishments. If the aforementioned rationale is accepted and the line of argument is adopted there are some drastic conclusions that inevitably confront us as a necessary corollary.[8]

We also had the opportunity to discuss the issue of determining the correct interpretation of Shah Wali Ullah’s text and arguments with some of the leading authorities on Shah Wali Ullah and/or Islamic Law and Jurisprudence, namely, Dr. Muhammad al-Ghazali, Javid Ahmad Ghamidi and Dr. Muhammad Amin. Both Dr. Ghazali and Javid Ahmad Ghamidi were not inclined to accept the interpretation Shibli had suggested. Mr. Ghamidi was more explicit on the point. In his view Shibli’s interpretation was neither in harmony with Shah sahib’s over all point of view on the issue nor in accordance with the specific issue of the application of religious law to the cases removed in time and space form the age of the Prophet.

Dr. Amin, taking his cue from our discussions in the Iqbal Academy, went into print and expressed his point of view in his Urdu article “Shah Wali Ullah awr Islami Hudud”.[9] The interpretation Shibli gave to Shah Wali Ullah’s statements was not acceptable to him either. Unfortunately, Dr. Amin, some how, did not give the actual text of Shibli nor the subsequent usage it was put to, Instead, he opened an other avenue of discussion. Dr. M. Khalid Masud, an eminent authority on Islamic law and jurisprudence, responded to Dr. Amin’s article[10] by defending the interpretation advanced by Shibli and, to a certain extent, Iqbal. However, remaining in the tracks of Dr. Amin’s arguments, he, perhaps involuntarily, marginalized the main issue.

In the next issue of Iqbal Review we intend to take up the issue again and offer our views on the question of finding the true rationale of our thinkers. The same issue would carry an other study of Iqbal’s comments on the hadith literature by Dr. Altaf Hussain Ahangar from the International Islamic University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

NOTES AND REFERENCES