Siddiq Hasan Khan
Template:Salafi Sayyid Muhammad Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān al-Qannawjī[3][4][5] (14 October 1832 – 26 May 1890) was an Islamic scholar and leader of India's Muslim community in the 19th century, often considered to be the most important Muslim scholar of the Bhopal State.[6] He is largely credited alongside Syed Nazeer Husain with founding the revivalist Ahl-i Hadith movement, which became the dominant strain of Sunni Islam throughout the immediate region.[7][8][9][10]
Siddiq Hasan Khan | |
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Born | Siddiq Hasan Khan 14 October 1832 |
Died | 26 May 1890 | (aged 57)
Nationality | Indian |
Other names | Muhammad Saddiq Hasan |
Citizenship | Indian |
Occupation | Muslim scholar |
Era | Contemporary |
Title | Nawab |
Movement | Ahl-i Hadith |
Spouse(s) | |
Prince Consort of Bhopal | |
In office 1871 – 26 May 1890 | |
Title | Allama, Sheikh |
Personal | |
Religion | Islam |
Spouse | Shah Jahan Begum |
Founder of | Ahl-i Hadith |
Muslim leader | |
Teacher | |
Students
| |
Literary works | See the list |
Khan's controversial nature has led to contrasting assessments of his personality, having been described by contrasting sources as a fundamentalist, and one of the first heroes of the Indian independence movement.[11][12] As one of the central figures of the early Ahl-i Ḥadīth networks, Siddiq Hasan Khan was also a major South Asian exponent of the teachings of the classical theologian Ibn Taymiyya (661 - 728 A.H /1263 - 1328 C.E).[13] Apart from Ibn Taymiyya, Siddiq Hāsăn Khan was also influenced by the scholarly traditions of Al-Shawkani, Shah Waliullah Dehlawi and Sayyid Ahmed.[14]
LifeEdit
Khan's family were said to be descendants of Ali, the fourth Caliph of Rashidun Caliphate.[11] Initially settling in Bukhara, they migrated to Multan and later to the Shi'ite strongholds of Bareilly and Kannauj. Khan himself was born in Bareilly on 14 October 1832.[15][16]
Khan grew up in a family which was impoverished despite its history of Islamic scholarship; his father converted from Shi'a Islam to Sunni Islam in the early 1800s.[12] Religiously, he was initially influenced by the ideas of Syed Ahmad Barelvi. Khan received much of his education in Farukhabad, Kanpur and Delhi under the care of friends of his father, who died when Khan was only five years old.[17][18] While in Delhi, Siddiq Hasan had studied Hadith sciences under the tutelage of 'Abd al Haqq Banarasi (d.1870) who was a major source of influence in shaping the teachings of Ahl-i Hadith. 'Abd al Haqq Banarasi was a member of Sayyid Ahmad Shahid's Hajj to Mecca in 1821 and decided to stay behind in Hejaz. Later Banarasi travelled to the Yemenite capital Sana'a, and studied under the theologian al-Shawkānī (d. 1834). After his studies under in Yemen, Banarasi would be the first scholar in India to introduce the works of Shawkani in India. When Khan adopted 'Abd al-Haqq as his teacher, the latter had become a renown Muhaddith noted for his stances against Taqlid.[19]
After pursuing Islamic studies with two Yemeni clerics who had emigrated to Bhopal, Khan came under the influence of the works of prolific Yemeni Islamic scholar Muhammad ash-Shawkani.[11] The reformist influence on Khan's thinking only increased with his performance of Hajj (Muslim pilgrimage) to Mecca, during which he became familiar with the works of the 14th century Syrian polemicist Ibn Taymiyyah. Khan brought back a large amount of books with him upon returning to Bhopal and began writing commentaries.[6] Khan relocated to Bhopal in 1854 initially selling perfume but later working as a schoolteacher, where his religious views gained him the ire of traditionalist locals.[18] He was expelled to Tonk in 1857, but soon returned to Kannauj to protect his family during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.[20]
Khan took up a job as an archivist and state historian in 1859 under Shah Jahan, who at the time was notable as a woman in a Muslim principality who was heir apparent to the throne.[12] For the first time in his life, Khan was financially well-off and brought his sister and mother to live with him in Bhopal. Khan married for the first time in 1860, to the daughter of the prime minister who was eleven years his senior. Siddiq Hasan Khan eventually married Begum on suggestion of his father-in-law (father of his first wife). Upon Shah Jahan's coronation in 1871, Khan was promoted to the position of chief secretary, began spending longer periods of time alone with Shah Jahan and the two were eventually married; with his second marriage, Khan had become the male consort of the female monarch.[6][20][21] According to Lepel Griffin, the marriage was in part to quash the rumor mongering, and officials made it clear that Khan was merely the Sultan's husband and would not function in any executive role.[22] The marriage was controversial due to Indian beliefs regarding the remarriage of widows; ironically, the stated justification for support of the marriage by British officials - themselves predominantly Christians - was that Islam encourages widows to remarry. Despite remaining the spouse of the actual monarch, Khan's wife began to observe purdah and corresponded with male diplomats with Khan as her representative.[12] Shāh Jahān Bēgum’s daughter Sulṭān Jahān Bēgum was one of her stepfather’s fiercest opponents, often labelling him as a "Wahhabi"; for forcing her mother to be in purdah.[23] Khan's mother-in-law held rather negative reviews of her daughter's new husband, and there was friction between the two families.[citation needed]
Siddiq Hasan's enemies in Bhopal state and other Muslim religious circles had often accused him of being a "Wahhabi", a label commonly employed by the colonial authorities to denote "anti-British" rebels, "fanatic", "puritan" etc.; with the intention to eradicate his influence in Bhopal. The British authorities began to inspect Siddiq Hasan's books closely and discovered his treatises which elaborated his doctrines on Jihad. Furthermore, when they detected that 17 Wahhabi scholars from Najd had come to study in Bhopal under Khan's tutelage, the British suspected him of being part of a pan-Islamic anti-British conspiracy; extending across India, Egypt, Istanbul, and Mahdist Sudan. Wary of Khan's influential position in the Bhopal court, British Resident Sir Lepel Griffin deposed Khan in 1885; charging him with instigating Indian Muslims against the British administration. Siddiq Hasan Khan firmly denied any Wahhabi influence on the Indian reformists. Furthermore, Khan had directly criticised the Najdi Wahhabis for their religious fanaticism, which caused bloodshed among fellow Muslims. Despite this, the British dismissed all his titles and sentenced him to house-arrest until his death in 1890. He was forbidden to visit his wife Shāh Jahān Bēgum during the day, but was permitted to spend the night in her palace, the Tāj Maḥal.[24][25] Both before and after his removal from the royal court by the British in 1885, Shah Jahan defended her husband to the very end as shown in the meeting minutes of a heated, vehement exchange between herself and Sir Griffin.[26] For her part, Shah Jahan denied that her husband held any executive power and merely advised her on some issues, arguing that the claims of her husband controlling her were based on jealousy on the part of her son-in-law and personal problems between Khan and Lepel.[27]
After forcing Ṣiddīq Ḥasan to retire, the British authorities would also destroy his personal networks across the Islamic World. He was banned from maintaining contacts with his publishers in Cairo or Istanbul, and the publication of his works were shut down. After the emergence of Salafiyya movement, his Arabic treatises would be published across the Arab World.[28] In 1890, Khan fell extremely ill with hepatitis. Resident Francis Henvey, Griffin's replacement, dispatched a medical officer but refused to administer medicine for fear that, given the terminal nature of Khan's illness, the British would be accused of poisoning him.[26] Khan died on 20 February 1890.[29][30]
ReceptionEdit
With the help of Yemeni Islamic scholars, Khan began criticizing folk Islam as well as the practices of both Sufism and Shi'a Islam. Khan banned celebrations for the Islamic prophet Muhammad's birthday (Mawlid) as heretical practices without basis in Islam, something which upset Sufis greatly. Additionally, his reformist ideas in regard to Islamic jurisprudence upset the predominant Hanafi school of Islamic law.[31] Khan's humble beginnings and working-class background also caused him to become the object of scorn, condescension yet also jealousy on the part of Bhopal's gentry.[32] Khan was still described as a prototypical Indo-Persian gentleman, multilingual, educated and with wide-reaching international ties.[18]
His efforts proved to be his undoing; just as quickly as he rose to become Bhopal's most influential Muslim leader, so did he lose this status. Initially, the British ignored accusations of his Muslim opponents that Khan was a proponent of Wahhabism, a label hated within both the British and Ottoman Empires due to Arabian challenge to the dominance of the two states in the Middle East.[11][33] After reviewing a book of Khan's which contained passages about jihad and observing several students from Arabia attend lessons under Khan, the British relented and also accused him of puritanism and anti-colonial agitation in 1881.[9][11] The British press at the time maligned Khan as a negative influence in the region, and pejoratively dubbed him as "the penniless adventurer."[12] Despite being accused of sedition against the state, Governor-General of India Lord Dufferin found no evidence of seditious acts on Khan's part at all after official inquiries.[31] Khan even went so far as to write criticisms of Muhammad ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab, who followed an entirely different school of Islamic law, in order to exonerate himself from the accusations of Wahhabism.[31][33]
Among other details, Khan had accused the Wahhabis of engaging in inter-religious violence and bloodshed and still clinging to the same traditionalist views for which Khan also criticized the Indian Sufis and Shi'ites.[11] Additionally, Khan based his religious views on the internationalism borne by the networks created by colonialists themselves. The Wahhabi movement, on the other hand, was geographically specific to the anti-colonial struggle and cultural environment of the Middle East. Khan elaborated on his position that the Wahhabi movement had no relevance to the situation and experience of reform-minded Muslims in India:[34]
- "Those who worship one God object to being called Wahhabis in the Ibn Abdul-Wahhab kind of way not only due to his belonging to a different nation and all of its politics, but because they consider God as the ruler and the protector of the whole world and this universalistic stance is blunted if they are said to be followers of a terrotorially rooted Abdul-Wahhab."
Despite his own defense and the efforts of his wife to protect him, Khan was deposed by the British in 1885 and spent the remaining five years of his life living in privacy.[11][12]
According to University of Erfurt professor Jamal Malik, the British overthrow of Khan was due to a number of political concerns rather than wrongdoing on Khan's own part. The start of the Mahdist War in Sudan in 1881 (which Khan ironically openly opposed), diplomatic ties between Khan's wife and the Sharif of Mecca and Khan's letter exchanges with Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II all caused the British authorities to fear a pan-Islamist uprising.[12][35] To withdraw the accusations against Khan, however baseless they were, would have weakened the British Empire's position in the wider Muslim world.[36] Eventually, British officials admitted that they had overreacted based on rumors and intrigues among Bhopal's political elite and that Khan had been falsely accused;[11] regardless, the Indian nationalist movement still regarded him as a hero in the anti-colonialist struggle. Upon Khan's death, his widow Shah Jahan negotiated with British authorities to have all of his official titles restored posthumously; Shah Jahan saw this as vindication of her belief that her husband had been falsely slandered, and filled her new court with Khan's relatives and associates.[37]
Outside politics Khan's efforts to preserve and revive Hadith studies, focusing on the statements and actions of Muhammad, were well received. Due to his large amount of edited and original published works, he has been dubbed "the Indian Al-Suyuti."[38]
LegacyEdit
ViewsEdit
Khan's theological views were very much a product of Shah Waliullah's reformist school in India.[39] After Shah Waliullah, Siddiq Hasān Khan had emerged as the most prominent advocate of Ibn Taymiyya's legacy in South Asia by undertaking the publication of a number of treatises that either elucidated his doctrines or provided theological arguments defending his ideas. He also reconciled Ibn Taymiyya's thought with what he regarded as authentic Sufi spirituality.[40] Coupled with the reformist ideas of Yemeni theologian Muhammad ibn 'Ali Al-Shawkani, Khan and his Ahl al-Hadith movement established similar iconoclastic ideas to the mainstream at the time.[21]
As an Athari theologian who embraced their doctrines, Khan strongly condemned Taqlid (blind-following) and believed in the literal intepretation of God's Attributes as part of upholding Tawhid.[41][42][43] Like Ibn Taymiyya, he also condemned Kalām as a discipline “full of speculation” which was introduced by scholars of “Greek philosophy". However, Siddiq Hasan Khan downplayed Ibn Taymiyya's denunciation of Ash'ari school and did not follow him on this point. While the Ahl-i Hadith favoured the literalist, anti-speculative Atharite approaches, they also considered Ash'aris as part of Sunni Islam and did not seek to deteriorate relations with the Ash'arite scholarship in the Bhopal state. In his treatise Ḥujaj al-kirāma, Ṣiddīq Ḥasan asserts that the core differences between the Ashʿaris and Atharis were limited to three or four points, without naming those issues. According to Khan, these were merely “practical” divergences (khilāf-i taṭbīq) and "differences in terminology" (nizāʿ-yi lafẓī); which were of minor importance.[44]
Not surprisingly given the fate of his ideological predecessors, much of Khan's philosophy was based as a reaction against the prevailing religious climate; Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the Deobandi and Barelvi movements and the Shi'ites from which Khan himself was descended were all targets of Khan's reformist criticism.[39] Khan's religious views have been described as centering on a desire to return to the pristine values with which Islam originally came, and to rid the Muslim world of the ills of charlatans, frauds and Hindu influence on Muslim practice.[27]
WorksEdit
After his marriage to the Sultan, Khan began publishing his own original works in Arabic, Persian and Urdu; the number of his works eventually topped 200, and many of them were distributed by the state press for free in Bhopal's schools.[45] His polemical and theological works are generally underlain by the principles of self-judgment, reason and rationality.[35]
Khan has been noted as one of the first scholars to research the topic of lexicography of the Arabic language, a field of study which the Arabs themselves had ignored until recently.[46][47] Khan also made a comprehensive review of Arabic philology and lexicons produced up to his time.[48]
Original worksEdit
- Al-Bulgha fi Usul al-Lugha. Istanbul, 1879.[47] Arabic.
- Hell-fire: Its Torments and Denizens. Trns. Saleh Dalleh. International Islamic Publishing House, 2005. English. ISBN 9789960850542
- Tarjuman-i Wahhabiya. Bhopal, 1884.[33] Urdu.
- Ash Shamama tul Anbarah min Mawlid al Khayr ul Barah (On Celebrating the Mawlid)
See alsoEdit
Further readingEdit
ReferencesEdit
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 الخراشى, سليمان (January 2010). الرسائل المتبادلة بين الشيخين صديق حسن خان وأحمد بن عيسى رحمهما الله. ISBN 9783060043811.
- ↑ Krawietz, Tamer, Birgit, Georges; Preckel, Claudia (2013). "Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān's Library: The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal". Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. p. 174. ISBN 978-3-11-028534-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Krawietz, Tamer, Birgit, Georges; Preckel, Claudia (2013). "Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān's Library: The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal". Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. p. 165. ISBN 978-3-11-028534-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ ., Saeedullah (1973). The life and works of Muhammad Siddiq Hasan Khan, Nawab of Bhopal: 1248 1307/1832-1890. Lahore: Ashraf Publishers. ASIN B0000E7Y28. OCLC 570589820.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ↑ Ahmad Nizami, Khaliq. "The Impact of Ibn Taymiyya on South Asia". Journal of Islamic Studies. Oxford University Press. 1: 139 – via JSTOR.
Nawab Sayyid Muhammad Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832-1890)
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Jamal Malik, Perspectives of mutual encounters in South Asian history, 1760–1860, pg. 71. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2000. ISBN 9004118020
- ↑ Sophie Gilliat-Ray (2010). Muslims in Britain: An Introduction. Cambridge University Press. p. 104. ISBN 978-0-521-83006-5.
- ↑ Daniel W. Brown, Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought: Vol. 5 of Cambridge Middle East Studies, pg. 27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. ISBN 9780521653947
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Malik, pg. 72.
- ↑ M. Naeem Qureshi, Pan-Islam in British Indian Politics, pg. 458. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1999. ISBN 9004113711
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 11.5 11.6 11.7 Claudia Preckel, Wahhabi or National Hero? Siddiq Hasan Khan. International Institute for the Study of Islam in the Modern World, vol. 11, #1, pg. 31.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 12.3 12.4 12.5 12.6 Annmarie Schimmel, Islam in the Indian Subcontinent, pg. 207. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1980. ISBN 9004061177
- ↑ Krawietz, Tamer, Birgit, Georges; Preckel, Claudia (2013). "Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān's Library: The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal". Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. p. 165. ISBN 978-3-11-028534-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Alavi, Seema (2015). "Chapter 5: Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan and the Muslim Cosmopolis". Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the Age of Empire. Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England: Harvard University Press. p. 269. ISBN 978-0-674-73533-0.
- ↑ Shaharyar Khan, The Begums of Bhopal: A History of the Princely State of Bhopal, pg. 120. London: I.B. Tauris, 2000. ISBN 1860645283
- ↑ Seema Alavi, Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832–90) and the Creation of a Muslim Cosmopolitanism in the 19th century. Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 54, #1, pg. 4. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 2011.
- ↑ Khan, pg. 121.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Alavi, pg. 5.
- ↑ Krawietz, Tamer, Birgit, Georges; Preckel, Claudia (2013). "Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān's Library: The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal". Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. p. 174. ISBN 978-3-11-028534-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ 20.0 20.1 M. Khan, pg. 122.
- ↑ 21.0 21.1 Alavi, pg. 6.
- ↑ M. Khan, pg. 125.
- ↑ Krawietz, Tamer, Birgit, Georges; Preckel, Claudia (2013). "Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān's Library: The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal". Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. p. 183. ISBN 978-3-11-028534-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Preckel, Claudia (2002). "Wahhabi or National Hero? Siddiq Hasan Khan". ISIM Newsletter. ISIM, Leiden. 11 (1): 31 – via Lieden University Scholarly Publications.
- ↑ Krawietz, Tamer, Birgit, Georges; Preckel, Claudia (2013). "Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān's Library: The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal". Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. p. 183. ISBN 978-3-11-028534-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ 26.0 26.1 M. Khan, pg. 141.
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 Khan, pg. 148.
- ↑ Krawietz, Tamer, Birgit, Georges; Preckel, Claudia (2013). "Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān's Library: The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal". Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. p. 183. ISBN 978-3-11-028534-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ "Biography of Allamah Nawab Siddiq Hassan Khan | Umm-Ul-Qura Publications". Retrieved 22 June 2017.
- ↑ Hamid, Razia. "Nawab Siddique Hasan Khan - | Rekhta". Rekhta. p. 38. Retrieved 22 June 2017.
- ↑ 31.0 31.1 31.2 Malik, pg. 76.
- ↑ Khan, pg. 127.
- ↑ 33.0 33.1 33.2 Alavi, pg. 8.
- ↑ Alavi, pg. 9.
- ↑ 35.0 35.1 Alavi, pg. 7.
- ↑ Malik, pg. 77.
- ↑ Khan, pg. 142.
- ↑ Muḥammad Isḥāq, India's contribution to the study of Hadith literature, pg. 175. University of Dhaka, 1955.
- ↑ 39.0 39.1 Schimmel, pg. 208.
- ↑ Ahmad Nizami, Khaliq. "The Impact of Ibn Taymiyya on South Asia". Journal of Islamic Studies. Oxford University Press. 1: 139–140 – via JSTOR.
After Shah Wali Allah, the most powerful advocate of Ibn Taimiyya's ideology was Nawab Sayyid Muhammad Siddiq Hasan Khan (1832-1890)..
- ↑ Rahmatullah (2015). Contribution of Nawab Siddique Hasan Khan to Quranic and Hadith Studies. Aligarh, India: Aligarh Muslim University. pp. 3, 122.
- ↑ "Nawab Siddiq Hasan Khan and His Tafsir Works" (PDF). Hazara Islamicus: 21–26. June 2014 – via hazaraislamicus.hu.edu.pk/.
- ↑ Uzundaģ, Sait (2014). "XIX. Asir Hindistan Hadi̇s Ali̇mi̇ siddîk hasan han'in ö.1307/1890 allah'in haberî sifatlari i̇le i̇lgi̇li̇ görüşleri̇" [19th-century Indian Hadith scholar Siddiq Hasan Khan's opinions d.1307/1890 on the Attributes of Allah]. Fırat Üniversitesi İlahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi. 19 (1): 125–145 – via Dergipark Akademik.
- ↑ Krawietz, Tamer, Birgit, Georges; Preckel, Claudia (2013). "Screening Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān's Library: The Use of Ḥanbalī Literature in 19th-Century Bhopal". Islamic Theology, Philosophy and Law: Debating Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Berlin, Germany: Walter De Gruyter. p. 195-196. ISBN 978-3-11-028534-5.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ Malik, pg. 75.
- ↑ John A. Haywood, Arabic Lexicography, pg. 1. Leiden: Brill Publishers, 1965.
- ↑ 47.0 47.1 John A. Haywood, "An Indian Contribution to the Study of Arabic Lexicography." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, October 1956, pgs. 165-180.
- ↑ Haywood, Lexicography, pg. 61.
- ↑ Sufism and the 'Modern' in Islam, pg. 337. Eds. Martin Van Bruinessen and Julia Day Howell. London: I.B. Tauris, 2007. ISBN 9781850438540
External linksEdit
- Bibliography at GoodReads.
- Burial site at WikiMapia.