A Teacher of Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab

A Teacher of Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhb: Muammad ayt al-Sind and the Revival of Ab al-
adth's Methodology
Author(s): Basheer M. Nafi
Source: Islamic Law and Society, Vol. 13, No. 2 (2006), pp. 208-241
Published by: Brill
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40377907
Accessed: 24-05-2016 05:48 UTC
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A TEACHER OF IBN CABD AL-WAHHAB:
MUHAMMAD HAYAT AL-SINDl AND THE REVIVAL
OF ASHAB AL-HADITFTS METHODOLOGY
BASHEER M. NAFI*
Abstract
Muhammad Hay at al-Sindl, the most eminent hadith scholar in the Hijazi
city of Madina in the first half of the eighteenth century, was one of the
teachers of the controversial Najdi reformist Muhammad b. cAbd al-Wah-
hab. Scholars of early modern Islamic thought disagree about al-Sindfs
influence on Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab. In this article I present a brief study of
the life and works of Hayat al-Sindl, focusing on his approach to hadith as
a primary source of jiqh, his call for ijtihdd, and his opposition to the legacy
of the madhhabs and to the divisions caused by partisan adherence to the
madhhab. Although he was influenced by the Hanball Ibn Taymiyya, Hayat
al-Sindfs outlook and methodology are closer to those of the classical ahl
al-hadith. Like Hayat al-Sindl, Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab was critical of the
established madhhabi system, disregarded the instruments of usul al-fiqh, and
appears to have been irreverent to the legacy of jiqh.
/although Muhammad Hayat al-SindI (d. 1163 /1 750) was

certainly a teacher of Muhammad b. cAbd al-Wahhab (1703-92),1
the meaning and implications of this teacher/student relationship
are a matter of dispute. The primary aim of this article is to present
a brief study of the life and educational background of Hayat al-
Sindl, with special emphasis on his intellectual attitudes toward
Correspondence: Basheer M. Nafi, 8 Old Croft Close, Kingston Blountt, Oxford-

shire OX 39 4RX, United Kingdom. E-mail: basheer.nafi@virgin.net
* Author's note: I am deeply grateful to the anonymous Islamic Law and

Society readers, and particularly to David S. Powers, for reading and commenting
on earlier versions of this article.
1 John Voll, "Muhammad Hayya al-Sindi and Muhammad Ibn cAbd al-
Wahhab: An Analysis of an Intellectual Group in Eighteenth-Century Madina",
BSOAS, 38 (1974), 32-9.
Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2006 Islamic Law and Society 13, 2
Also available online - www.brill.nl
A TEACHER OF IBN CABD AL-WAHHAB 209
ijtihdd, hadith and sources of law. Considering the dominant cultural

modes within Sunni Islam in the early eighteenth century, this
article explores whether Hayat al-Sindl was a conformist 'alim, or
whether he held reformist and critical views. Some of the important
questions to be asked here relate to the educational relationship
between Hayat al-Sindl and Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab, and its implication
for the latter's future vocation as a radical Salafi scholar. Was
Hayat al-Sindf's outlook an isolated phenomenon or did it reflect
a wider cultural current? To what extent did the cultural milieu in
which he lived contribute to Islamic intellectual developments of
the late eighteenth century and beyond? It is my contention that
the sources of Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab's intellectual outlook - despite
his highly controversial views - are to be found in an increasingly
influential cultural movement within eighteenth-century Islamic
circles, of which Hayat al-Sindl was a crucial representative.
John Voll, who highlighted the educational connection between
Hayat al-Sindl and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, placed Hayat al-Sindl
within a network of Madinan culamd} with links to not only Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab but also his contemporary, the Indian reformist Wali-
Allah DihlawT (1703-62). However, in his study of eighteenth-century
Muslim reformist thought,2 Ahmad Dallal saw no significance in
these relations. Dallal formulates his argument as follows: First, the
"intellectual family tree" of students and teachers "cannot serve as
evidence for common origins; education acquired from the same
teacher could be, and indeed was, put to completely different uses
by different students, and the commonality of the source does not
prove that the outcome is identical or even similar."3 Second, Dallal
suggestes that Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhab wrote Kitdb al-Tawhid, his most
influential work, "during his stay in Basra before he traveled to
Mecca [and Madina], where he supposedly studied under Muhammad
Hayya al-Sindl". This sequence of events means that the ideas of
Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab "were articulated before establishing connections
with the Haramayn network", including, of course, Hayat al-Sindl.4
Finally, Dallal presents an elaborate exposition of the ideas of Ibn
cAbd al-Wahhab and Dihlawl, distinguishing the crude, exclusive
2 Ahmad Dallal, "The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought,

1750-1850", Journal of the American Oriental Society, 113:3 (1993), 341-59.
3 Ibid., 342.
4 Ibid, 342, note 15.
210 BASHEER M. NAFI
Salafi outlook of the first from the complex, Sufi oriented system of
ideas of the second.
DallaPs argument is relevant to our understanding of Hayat al-
Sindl. First, while it is true that the "intellectual family tree" of
students and teachers does not necessarily prove the similarity of
the intellectual outcome, a degree of intellectual commonality and
shared ideational elements should be assumed, unless proven other-
wise. Identifying chains of knowledge is vital not only for tracing
the emergence and spread of Sufi tanqas but also for understanding
the common intellectual features, as well as the diversification, of
Islamic juridical and theological schools. Second, sources for the
life of Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab (including Amln SacTd5s Sirat al-Imdm al-
Shaykh Muhammad bin cAbd al-Wahhab, cited by Dallal), do not support
DallaPs itinerary for the intellectual development of the Najdl
reformist, nor do they rule out Hayat al-Sindi's influence on him.
Largely, these sources agree that Kitdb al-Tawhid was written after
Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab studied with Hayat al-Sindl at Madina.5 Third,
although DallaPs thorough analysis succeeds in underscoring the
differences between Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab and DihlawT, it ignores
5 Amln M. Sacid, Sirat al-Imdm al-Shaykh Muhammad bin cAbd al-Wahhdb

(Riyadh: Darat al-Malik cAbd al-'AzIz, 1395 A.H.), 18-21, indicates that Ibn
cAbd al-Wahhab's travel to the Hijaz for Hajj and learning (during which he
joined al-Sindl's circle) preceded his journey to Basra. Sa(ld adds that Kitdb
al-Tawhid was written at Huraymala', after the return of Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab
from Basra. This sequence of events is also supported by 'Abdallah b. cAbd
al-Rahman b. Salih al-Bassam, ' Ulamd' Najd fi Sittat Qurun (Makkah: Matba'at
al-Nahda al-Hadltha, 1398 A.H.), 1:28-30. Although al-Bassam states that
Kitdb al-Tawhid was written in Basra, he is clear in placing the Hajj journey
and the joining of al-Sindi's circle before the Basran sojourn. Above all, both
'Uthman b. 'Abdallah b. Bishr, 'Unwdn al-Majd fi Tdrikh Najd, ed. A. al-
Shaykh (Riyadh: Wizarat al-Macarif, 1971), 1:20-2, and Husayn b. Ghannam,
Tdrikh Najd, ed. Nasir al-Dln al-Asad (Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1985), 82-3, the
two most authoritative sources on the life of Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab, agree that
the Hajj and the study at Madina (emphasized by Ibn Bishr) preceded the
travel to Basra. Khalll Mardam-Bec, A'ydn al-Qarn al-Thdlith 'Ashar fi al-Fikr
wa'l-Spdsa wa'l-Ijtimct (Beirut: Lajnat al-Turath al-'Arabl, 1971), 141-4, cAbdallah
al-Salih al-cUthaymIn, Tdrikh al-Mamlaka al-Arabiyya al-Sdudiyya (Riyadh: Matabic
al-Sharlf, 1985), 1:69, adhere to this itinerary and place the writing of Kitdb
al-Tawhid after Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab's travels to Madina and Basra and before
he embarked on his reformist call in Najd. See also Michael Cook, "On the
Origins of ^Wahhabism," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, 2:2 (1992), 191-202;
Natana J. Delong-Baz, WahhdbT Islam: From Revival and Reform to Global Jihad
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 22.
A TEACHER OF IBN CABD AL-WAHHAB 2 1 1
the specific similarities in their respective intellectual enterprises.6

Both, for example, were influenced by Ibn Taymiyya (661-728/
1263-1328), the renowned founder of the Salafi school of thought;7
both sought, in different ways and to different degrees, to challenge
the perpetuation and authority of the madhhabi system and to re-
assert the preeminence of the Islamic founding texts, the Qur'an
and hadith\ and both envisioned a mode of pristine Islam that they
thought it possible and imperative to recover. Their highly divergent
attitudes toward Sufism, which are at the heart of Dallal's thesis,
raise vexed questions about the relation between Sufism and the
re-emergence of Salafism in the early modern period, to be discussed
below.
From the Sind to Madina: The Making of a Scholar of Hadlth
Muhammad Hayat b. Ibrahim al-Sindl was from the Sindl tribe of

Jajar, in whose area of settlement near the city of Adilpur he was
born. His date of birth is not known, but considering his career at
Madina, it is likely to have been during the last few decades of the
seventeenth century. Islam, which reached the northwestern part
of the Indian subcontinent as early as the eighth century, was firmly
established in the Sind region. During the late seventeenth century,
the Sind belonged to the Mogul Empire, ruled by emperor Awrangzeb
(known also as cAlamgir I; 1658-1707),8 a strict Muslim and proponent
6 Dallal, "The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought",

343-51.
7 The influence of Ibn Taymiyya on Ibn Abd al-Wahhab is widely
acknowledged. For examples of Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab's reference to Ibn
Taymiyya, see his letters in Ibn Ghannam, Tdrikh Najd, 355-8, 361-78. Wall-
Allah Dihlawl wrote a treatise on the virtues of al-Bukhari and Ibn Taymiyya,
entitled Maktubdt fi Mandqib Abi 'Abdallah Muhammad b. IsmtfTl al-Bukharl wa-
Fadilat Ibn Taymiyya. For a list of DihlawT's works, see Zafarul-Islam Khan, al-
Imdm Wali-Alldh al-Dehlawi (New Delhi: Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies,
1996), 39-41. On the influence of Ibn Taymiyya on Dihlawl, see further J.
M. S. Baljon, Religion and Thought of Shah Wall Allah, 1702-1762 (Leiden: Brill,
1986), 200-1; Marcia Hermansen, "Translated Introduction," in Wali- Allah
DihlawT, The Conclusive Argument from God. Shah Wali Allah of Delhi's Hujjat Allah
al-Bdligha (Leiden: Brill, 1996), xv-lx.
8 On Awrangzib and the significance of his reign, see Ishtiaq Husain
Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent, 610-1947 (The
Hague: Mouton & co., 1962), 164-75.
212 BASHEER M. NAFI
of orthodox Islam. During Awrangzeb's reign relations between

Muslims in India and the holy places in the Hijaz were strengthened,
helped by improvements in naval transport.
Hayat al-Sindl received his early education in the Arabic language,
HanafTy^ and Ashcarl-Maturldl theology at the Sindl city of Tatta,
but seems to have been still young when he left Tatta for Madina
to further his education.9 Al-Aczamfs claim that Hayat al-Sindl was
a student of Muhammad Mucln b. Muhammad Mucln of Tatta,
himself a student of Wali- Allah Dihlawl,10 is obviously mistaken,
for, Hayat al-Sindl was at least a generation older than Dihlawl.
Hayat al-Sindl most likely studied in Tatta in the late seventeenth
or early eighteenth century, before Dihlawl was born or while he
was still a child. Hence, Hayat al-Sindl's educational relationship
with Mu'In is either fictional or, as is more likely, Mu'In was never
a student of Dihlawl in the first place.11 Given the preeminent
position that DihlawT has come to occupy in the modern Islamic
imagination of the Indian subcontinent, it is not surprising that his
name is invoked to bestow legitimacy on other 'ulama3 and a wide
range of ideas.
Although the date of Hayat al-Sindfs arrival in Madina is not
specifically recorded by his biographers, it is almost certain that he
was in Madina before 1 702, the year in which his oldest Madinan
teacher, Hasan b. cAlI al-TJjayml (1049-1 1 13/1639-1702),12 died.
9 Muhammad Abd al-Hayy al-Kittanl, Fihras al-Faharis, ed. Ihsan cAbbas

(Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islaml, 1982), 1:356-7; Muhammad KhalTl al-Muradl,
Silk al-Durar ft A'ydn al-Qarn al-Thdni Ashar (Baghdad: Maktabat al-Muthanna,
n.d.), 4: 34; Khayr al-Dln al-Zirikli, al-A'lam (Beirut: Dar al-(Ilm li'l-Malayln,
1989), 6:111.
10 See Muhammad Diya' al-Rahman al-Aczami's introduction to his edition
of Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl, Path al-Ghafirfi Wad al-Aydxcald al-Sudur (Madina:
Maktabat al-Ghuraba' al-Athariyya, 1419 A.H.), 11.
11 None of Hayat al-Sindi's Indian biographers supports al-A'zamfs claim.
Although all agree with the standard Arab historical biographies of the period,
they do not associate Hayat al-Sindl with DihlawT. See, for example, $iddlq
Hasan Khan, Ithdf al-Nubald* al-Muttaqin bi-Ihyd* al-Fuqahd3 al-Muhaddithin (Kanpur:
Matbac NizamI, 1288 A.H.), 403-4; idem, Abjad al-Ulum (Beirut: Dar al-
Kutub al-llmiyya, 1999), 3:138-9; (Abd al-Hayy al-Hasanl al-NadwI, Muzhat
al-Khawdtir wa-Bahjat al-Masdmi' wa'l-Nawdzir (Ra'i Barilll: Dar 'Arafat, 1991),
6: 309-10.
12 On al-cUjaymi, see Abdallah al-Ayyashi, al-Rihla alJ Ayydshiyya (Rabat:
Dar al-Maghrib, 1977), 2: 212; cAbd al-Rahman al-jabartl, Tdrikh (Ajd}ib al-
Athdr ft al-Tardjim wa'l-Akhbdr (Beirut: Dar al-jll, n.d.), 1:123; al-Kittanl, Fihras
In Madina, Hayat al-Sindl joined the circle of shaykh Muhammad

b. 'Abd al-Hadl al-Sindl (known also as Abu al-Hasan al-Sindl the
elder, d. 1138 or 1139/ 1726-7),13 a Hanafi 'alirn and a renowned
Madinan scholar of hadith. Ibn cAbd al-Hadl al-Sindl, who also
originated from the Sind region, had studied with some of the most
influential 'ulama3 of Madina, including Ibrahim b. Hasan al-Kurani
(1025-1 101/1616-89).14 During his residence in Madina, Ibn cAbd
al-Hadl al-Sindl emerged as the principal teacher of hadith at the
Prophet's mosque, attracting a large number of students from various
parts of the Muslim world. Hayat al-Sindl's association with Ibn
cAbd al-Hadl lasted for so long that the student came to be identified
with his teacher. This association culminated with Hayat al-Sindl's
inheriting Ibn cAbd al-Hadfs position as the main teacher of hadith
at the Prophet's mosque immediately after Ibn cAbd al-Hadl's death
in 1726. Hayat al-Sindl continued to teach hadith at the Prophet's
mosque until his death in 1750. His teachers included Hasan b.
'All al-(UjaymI, 'Abdallah b. Salim al-Basri (1048-1 134/1638-1722),15
and Muhammad b. Ibrahim al-Kurani (known also as Abu al-
Tahir, 1081-1 145/1670-1733).16
It was in the circle of Muhammad al-Kurani that Wali-Allah
Dihlawl spent his sojourn at Madina in 1731-2, an experience that
left a lasting impact on his intellectual formulation.17 Whereas al-
al-Fahdris, 1:209, 447-9; Siddiq Hasan Khan, Abjad al-Ulum, 3:137; al-Zirikll,
al-A'ldm, 2: 205.
13 Al-MuradI, Silkal-Durar, 4:66; Ismail al-Baghdadl, Hadiyat al-Arifm:
Asmd' al-Mu'allifin wa-Athar al-Musanntfin (Istanbul: n.p., 1955-57), vol. 2, column
318.
14 On al-Kurani, see EI2, s. v. "Ibrahim al-Kurani," (A. H. Johns); Voll,
"Muhammad Hayya al-Sindl and Muhammad ibn cAbd al-Wahhab"; Basheer
M. Nafi, "Tasawwuf and Reform in pre-Modern Islamic Culture: In Search
of Ibrahim al-Kurani", Die Welt des Mams, 42: 3 (2002), 307-55.
15 On al-Basri, see al-Jabartl, Tarikh, 1:132-3; al-Kittani, Fihras al-Fahdns,
1:95-6, 193-9, al-Zirikll, al-A'ldm, 4: 88; John O. Voll, "Abdallah Ibn Salim
al-Basri and 18th Century Hadith Scholarship," Die Welt des Islams, 42:3 (2002),
356-72.
16 On Muhammad al-Kurani, see cAbd al-Gham al-Nabulsi, al-Haqiqa
wa'l-MajdzfT al-Rihla ild Bildd al-Shdm wa-Misr wa'l-Hijdz, ed. Ahmad Hiraydl
(Cairo: al-Hay'a al-Misriyya al-Amma li'1-Kitab, 1986), 358 ff.; al-Muradl,
Silk al-Durar, 4:27; al-Zirikll, al-A(ldm, 5:304.
17 Aziz Ahmad, "Political and Religious Ideas of Shah Wali-ullah of Dehli",
The Muslim World, LII: 1 (1962), 22; Baljon, Religion and Thought of Shah Wali
Allah, 5-6; Hafiz A. Ghaffar Khan, "Shah Wali Allah: On the Nature, Origin,
214 BASHEER M. NAFI
cUjaymI was a Hanafi 'alim, al-Basrl and Muhammad al-Kuranl

were ShafTls who had studied with Ibrahim al-Kuranl. To a large
extent, the most authoritative chains of hadith scholarship in the
early eighteenth century ended with this group of culamd\ including
Muhammad b. cAbd al-Hadl al-Sindl, al-Kuranl, al-Basrl and al-
cUjaymT. According to al-Kittanl, al-Basr! was so highly regarded
that he was known as the hdfii (the most knowledgeable in hadith)
of the Hijaz. Muhammad al-Kuranl, like his father, was also interested
in Islamic theology.
The Madinan cultural milieu in which Muhammad Hayat al-
Sindl's outlook was formed had been evolving for several decades
through interconnected groups of culamd3 who came from various
parts of the Muslim world.18 From the mid-seventeenth century
onwards Madina had witnessed a considerable revival of hadith
scholarship devoted not only to isndds but also to matns (narratives).
This interest in hadith reflected increasing disenchantment with the
accumulated legacies of the schools ofjiqh, and the parallel emergence
of 'ulamd3 who sought directly to utilize the Qur'an and hadith.
Although the 'ulamd3 who shaped the Madinan cultural scene of the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries belonged to different
madhhabs, madhhabi affiliation was becoming an insignificant criterion
in defining the nature of their intellectual association and intercon-
nection. Beginning with Ibrahim al-Kuranl, at least, there developed
a critical re-consideration of the validity and meaningfulness of the
dominant themes of late Ash'arl theology, including the Ash'arl
view of the attributes of God, causation and predestination, and
man's responsibility for his actions. Prominent within this current
of thought was an inclination to rehabilitate the ideas of Ahmad b.
Hanbal (d. 241/855) and Ibn Taymiyya. Almost all of the culamd3
associated with these Madinan circles were affiliated with the
Naqshbandiyya tanqa, especially the reformist line of Naqshbandiyya
represented by Ahmad Sirhindl ( 1 564-1 624), 19 known as Naqsh-
Definition, and Classification of Knowledge", Journal of Islamic Studies, 3:2

(1992), 203-13.
18 On the main intellectual features of the Madinan environment from
the late-seventeenth to the early-eighteenth century, see John O. Voll, "Hadith
Scholars and Tariqas: An cUlama Group in the 18th Century Haramayn and
their Impact in the Islamic World", Journal of Asian and African Studies, 15:3-
4 (1980), 264-73; Nafi, "Tasawwuf and Reform" 350-5.
19 On al-Sirhindi and his teachings, see Ahmad al-Sirhindl, Maktubdt al-
bandiyya-Mujaddidiyya. These culamd3 were to different degrees critical

of Ibn cArabI's doctrine of wahdat al-wujud (existential unity).
Not every cdlim who participated in the Madinan circles of the
late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries embodied all of
these elements. Traditional Islamic education was a long journey
of continuously evolving intellectual choices, in which educational
ties have always been constrained by various contextual influences.
The attitudes of many of the 'ulamd3 who came in contact with, or
were part of, the Madinan circles at the time can perhaps never be
ascertained, for they either left no writings or their writings are of
such a nature as to convey little about the substance of their
convictions. However, biographies of Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl,
especially those written by his students, seem to agree on the following:
(a) despite his interest in fiqh and theology, Hayat al-Sindl was
regarded (and was keen to be regarded) as a scholar of hadith'? (b)
he was acutely critical of partisan madhhabT adherence, common
among ordinary people as well as some culamd3o{ his time, describing
it as sheer ignorance and a bad innovation (bid* a). Although he
maintained his formal affiliation to the HanafT madhhab, he advised
his students not to commit themselves blindly to any madhhab but
rather to "seek the meanings of the Qur'an and follow the hadiths";21
Imam al-Rabbdni Mujaddid al-Alf al-Thdni (Istanbul: Enver Baytan Kitabivi,

n.d.), vol. 1:41-4, 56-8, 67-9, 192-5, 254-6, 260-80, 342-6; vol. 2: 3-8, 25-6,
45-57, 89-92; Aziz Ahmad, An Intellectual History of Islam in India (Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1969), 4; Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi, The Muslim
Community of the Indo- Pakistani Subcontinent, 610-1947 (The Hague: Mouton &
Co., 1960), 151-2; Abul Hasan Nadwi, Saviours of Islamic Spirit: Shaikh Ahmad
Mujaddid Alf Thdni (Lucknow: Academy of Islamic Research and Publications,
1983); Yohanan Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi: An Outline of His Thought
and a Study of His Image in the Eyes of Posterity (Montreal: McGill-Queen's Uni-
versity Press, 1971); Muhammad Abdul Haq Ansari, Sufism and Shared: A
Study of Shaykh Ahmad SirhindVs Effort to Reform Sufism (Leicester: The Islamic
Foundation, 1986).
20 See, for example, the view of cAbd al-Qadir al-Kawkabam, Hayat al-
Sindl's student, as quoted in al-Kittanl, Fihras al-Fahdris, 1:356.
21 alih b. Muhammad al-cUmarI al-Fullanl (1166-1218/1753-1803), Iq&i
Himam Awli al-Absdr li'l-Iqtidd" bi-Sayyid al-Muhdjinn wa'l-Ansdr (Pakistan: Dar
Nashr al-Kutub al-cIlmiyya, 1390 A.H.), 70. Siddlq Hasan Khan (d. 1307/
1889) states that Hayat al-Sindl "reached the level of ijtihdd and [it] was not
his custom to imitate anyone," meaning any madhhab (Hasan Khan, Ithdf al-
Mbald, 2: 403). On al-Fullanl, see John O. Hunswick, "Salih al-Fullanl (1752/
53-1803): The Career and Teachings of a West African 'alim in Medina," in
A. H. Green (ed.), In Quest of an Islamic Humanism: Arabic and Islamic Studies in
216 BASHEER M. NAFI
(c) like many of his teachers in Madina, Hayat al-Sindl was a

Naqshbandl, having been initiated into the tanqa by cAbd al-Rahman
al-Saqqaf (d. 1 1 24/ 1712) who was responsible for much of the
Naqshbandiyya's expansion among the 'ulamd3 of the Haramayn in
the early eighteenth century.22
These are features of a complex 'alim with a multifaceted outlook,
an 'dlirn with HanafT and Naqshbandl backgrounds who advocated
a non-madhhabi approach to religion. A similar picture can be drawn
from Hayat al-Sindl's list of reported writings and from his most
prominent students. Hayat al-Sindf s works can be divided into five
categories.23 First, commentaries on hadith collections, which include:
"Shark al-Arbdin of al-Nawawiyya?2* "Shark al-Arba(in of al-Haraw?';25
"Mukhtasar al-^awdjir of Ibn Hajar al-Haytaml";26 "al-Ajwiba can al-
Honor of Mohamed al-Noweihi (Cairo: The American University Press, 1984),

139-54.
22 Al-JabartI, Tdrikh, 1:125-6.
23 Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi's list of writings has been compiled from
the following sources: Amln Hablb b. Abl Bakr Khadr, "Tabaqat al-Fuqaha'
wa'l-'Ubbad wa'1-Zuhhad wa-Mashayikh al-Tarfqa al-Sufiyya," ms. 726, Tarikh,
Institute of Arabic Manuscripts, The Arab League, Cairo, plates 61-2; C.
Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur (Leiden: Brill, 1943-9), S. II,
522; cUmar Rida Kahhala, Mu'jam al-Mu'allijtn (Beirut: Dar Ihya' al-Turath,
1957), 9:275; al-Kittanl, Fihras al-Fahdris, 1:356; al-Muradl, Silk al-Durar, 4:34;
al-Zirikll, al-A'ldm, 6:111; al-Baghdadl, Hadiyat al-'Ari/tn, vol. 2, column 327.
24 This is a commentary on al-Nawawi's popular collection of forty Hadiths.
See Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl, Shark al-Arbdln al-Nawawiyya, ed. Hikmat al-
HarM (Amman: Dar al-MacalT, 1998). Al-Nawawl (known also as al-Imam al-
NawawT) is Muhyl al-Dln Yahya b. Sharaf b. Hizam al-Dimashql (631-76/
1233-77), a renowned scholar of hadith and ShaficIJfyA. See Taj al-Dln Abd
al-Wahhab al-Subki, Tabaqat al-Shqftiyya al-Kubrd, ed. Mahmud al-Tanahl
and Abd al-Fattah al-Hulw (Cairo: Dar Ihya3 al-Kutub al-Arabiyya, n. d.),
8: 395-400; Shams al-Dln Muhammad al-Dhahabl, Tadhkirat al-Huffdi (Hay-
derabad: Da'irat ul-Ma(arif Il-cOsmania, n. d.), 4:1470-4.
/0 A commentary on the collection of forty hadiths of the HanafT scholar,
All b. Muhammad b. Sulttan al-Qarl al-HarawT (d. 1041/1606). On al-
HarawT, see Muhammad Abd al-Hayy al-LaknawI, al-Fawd'id al-Bahiyya ft
Tardjim al-Hanafiyya (Beirut: Dar al-Kitab al-Islaml, n.d.), 8-9; Muhammad
Amln al-Muhibbl, Khuldsat al-AtharfiA'ydn al-Qarn al-HddxAshar (Beirut: Maktabat
Khayyat, n.d.), 3:185-6; al-Zirikll, al-A'ldm, 5:12-3.
26 A commentary on a collection by the ShafTi scholar and jurist Ahmad
b. Hajar al-Haytaml (909-74/1504-67). On al-Haytaml, see Abdallah b. HijazT
al-SharqawI, "al-Tuhfa al-Bahiyya ft Tabaqat al-Shaficiyya," ms. 149, TarTkh,
Institute of the Arab Manuscripts, The Arab League, Cairo, plates 204-5;
Muhyi al-Dln Abd al-Qadir al-cAydarusI, al-Nur al-Sdfir 'an Akhbdr al-Qarn al-
Ashir (Cairo: n. p.: n. d.), 287-92; al-ZiriklT, al-Acldm, 1:234.
As'ila al-Manqula can Amdli al-Izz bin cAbd al-Saldm";27 and "Shark al-
Targhib wa'l-Tarhib of al-Mundhin"28 in two volumes. Second, works
on theology, including: "Risdlat al-Junnafi'Aqd'id Ahl al-Sunna"; "Risdla
fi Tahqiq Khalq al-Afal 'aid Tariq AM al-Haq wa'l-Sunnd '; "Risdla fi
cAdam Imdn Fir'awn" Third, works on tasawwuf which include: "Shark
al-Hikam al-Atd'iyya oflbn 'Atd'-Alldh al-IskandarF;29 "Shark al-Hikam
al-Haddddiyya of'Abdalldh al-Hadddd Bd-'Alawi"30 known also as "Ma-
wdhib al-Hikam 'aid Matn al-Hikam" Fourth, works on Jiqh and ethics,
which include: "Path al-Ghafurfi Wadc al-Aydi cald al-Sudur"; "Risdla
fi Tahrim al-Khiddb bi'l-Sawdd li-Ghayr al-Jihddf "Risdla fi Itdlat al-
Rakla al-Uld cald al-Thdniya;" "Risdla li-Ahl al-Ishdra bi'l-Sabbdbafi al-
Saldtf "Risdla fi Ibtdl al-Dard'ihf "Risdla fi al-Nahy (an (Ishq Suwar al-
Murd wa'l-Niswdn" Fifth, works on Islamic legal theory, which include:
"al-lqdf'ald Sabab al-Ikhtildf" "Tuhfat al-Andmfi al-Amal bi-Hadith al-
JVabi calayh al-Saldt wa'l-Saldm;" "Risdlat al-Ajwiba fimd gdhiruh al-
Ta'drudfi al-Aydt al-Qur'dniyya"
The titles of these works, only a few of which have been located
and even fewer edited and published, reflect significant aspects of
Hayat al-Sindfs mode of thinking as a versatile, morally conscious
and reformist 'alim. Certain themes that Hayat al-Sindl discussed in
his writings, such as his opposition to erecting tombs and drawing
human images, would soon resurface in the teachings of Muhammad
b. cAbd al-Wahhab. Others, such as his refutation of the claim that
Farcun (the Pharaoh of Moses) died as a Muslim, which constitutes
an important theme in Ibn cArabI's wahdat al-wujud, 31 as well as his
27 A commentary on a Hadith collection by the Shafici scholar, cAbd al-

cAzIz b. cAbd al-Salam al-Sulaml (known also as al-lzz b. cAbd al-Salam, and
Sultan al-culama\ d. 660/1262). On Ibn cAbd al-Salam, see al-Subkl, Tabaqdt
al-Shaficiyya, 8:209-55.
28 A commentary on the highly popular collection of hadith by the muhaddith
and Shafrl jurist, Abd al-AzIm b. Abd al-QawI al-Mundhirl (581-656/1 185-
1258). On al-Mundhirl, see al-Subkl, Tabaqdt al-Shdfiiyya, 8:259-61.
29 A commentary on the popular Sufi parables by Ahmad b. Muhammad
b. 'Ata5 Allah al-Sakandarl (d. 709/1309), a disciple of Abu al-Hasan al-
Shadhill. On Ibn cAtaJ Allah, see Ibn Farhun al-Maliki, al-Dibdj al-Mudhahhab
fi Ma'rifat A'ydn 'Ulamd' al-Madhhab, ed. Muhammad al-Ahmadl Abu al-Nur
(Cairo: Maktabat Dar al-Turath, n. d.), 1:242-3; al-Subkl, Tabaqdt al-Shdfi iyya,
9:23-4.
30 A commentary on Sufi parables by Abdallah al-Haddad ba-cAlawi
(1044-1132/1634-1720). On ba-AlawI, see al-Muradl, Silk al-Durar, 3:91-3;
al-Zirikll, al-Acldm, 4:104.
31 He is Muhammad b. cAlI b. Muhammad b. ArabI (560-638/1165-
218 BASHEER M. NAFI
interest in the hikam (wise insights) of Ibn cAta5-Allah al-Sikandarl,

mark his rejection of philosophical and extreme tasawwuf and his
identification with mainstream forms of Sufi expressions. Although
Hayat al-Sindi was not especially socially active, implied in his
writings is a sharp and critical view of the intellectual and social
modes of his time.
To a large extent, Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab's image as a puritanical
and radical reformist has eclipsed Hayat al-Sindi and complicated
the understanding of his intellectual position. Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab's
ideas were certainly more controversial than those of any of his
contemporaries, and the promotion of these ideas through the sword
in the course of the Saudl-Wahhabi movement, made them even
more so. Like other Muslim reformists, Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab was
motivated by a critical approach to the dominant modes of knowledge
and social norms; his teachings, however, were based on a strict
judgment of social behavior and human acts in pure theological
terms. In the Wahhabi system of thought, the denied reality is
sharply projected against a direct interpretation of the scripture.32
Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab argued that tawhid is not only about the belief
in the oneness of God as the Creator and Lord of the universe
(tawhid al-rububiyya), but also about holding Him as the master and
the ultimate sovereign of life (tawhid al-uluhiyya). It follows that the
association of any other power or entity with God is shirk or a
breach of tawhid. Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab launched a fierce theological
denunciation of Sufism and popular religion, providing the Saudi-
1240). On him and on the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud, with which he is

identified, see Rom Landau, The Philosophy of Ibn cArabi (London: Allen and
Unwin, 1959); William C. Chittick, ''Wahdat al-wujud in Islamic Thought,"
Bulletin of the Henry Marty n Institute of Islamic Studies (Hyderabad), 10 (January-
March 1991), 7-27; idem, The Sufi Path of Knowledge: Ibn al-ArabVs Metaphysics
of Imagination (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1989). On the
long history of Islamic debate about Ibn cArabI's ideas, see Alexander D.
Knysh, Ibn 'Arab! in the Later Islamic Tradition: The Making of a Polemical Image
in Medieval Islam (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999).
32 Ibn Bishr, 'Unwdn al-Majd; Ibn Ghannam, Tankh Najd\ al-cUthaymin,
Tdrikh al-Mamlaka, 1:33-56; Christine Moss Helms, The Cohesion of Saudi Arabia:
Evolution of Political Identity (London: Croom Helm, 1981), 76-110; Cook, "On
the Origins of Wahhabism," 191-202; Esther Peskes, Muhammad b. Abdalwahhdb
(1703-1792) im Widerstreit (Beirut and Stuttgart: Beiruter Texte und Studien,
1993); idem., "The Wahhabiyya and Sufism in the Eighteenth Century", in
Frederick de Jong and Bernd Radtke, Islamic Mysticism Contested (Leiden: Brill,
1999), 145-61. Cf. Delong-Baz, Wahhabi Islam.
Wahhabi movement and its long wars against the Ottoman authorities
and the people and local leaders of the Arabian Peninsula and its
vicinity with its legitimating discourse.
Although Muhammad b. cAbd al-Wahhab made his views public
ten years before the death of Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl, it is not
clear how the teacher responded to the controversy surrounding
his student's ideas. Ahmad b. Zaynl Dahlan, the Imam of the Meccan
Haram (Grand Mosque) at the time and one of the most ferocious
opponents of the Wahhabi movement, wrote about Hayat al-Sindl's
disagreement with his student, Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab.33 By contrast,
Ibn Bishr, the Wahhabi annalist, depicts a typically amicable
relationship between the teacher and his student, relaying an incident
in which Hayat al-Sindl pronounced his disapproval of acts of
supplication at the tomb of the Prophet.34 Since this incident was
witnessed by Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab, it is presented as an indication
of agreement between the student's drive for reform and his teacher's
ideas. Both reports date to the period before the emergence of the
Wahhabi movement and are difficult to verify. It is most likely that
until Hayat al-Sindl's death in Madina, the Wahhabi question
remained confined to the Najd region and as yet had no palpable
echoes in the Hijaz.
Ibn (Abd al-Wahhab was not the only student of al-Sindl, and on
an intellectual level, others may have been no less influential. Among
them is Muhammad b. Sadiq al-Sindl (known also as Abu al-Hasan
al-Sindl the younger, 1 125-87/1 7 13-73),35 arguably the preeminent
scholar of hadith at Madina in the late eighteenth century. Like his
teacher, Sadiq al-Sindl advocated the precedence of Qur'an and
hadith over the opinion of the madhhab, despite his Hanafi background.
Principally a teacher, with a few works on hadith and usul al-fiqh
(jurisprudence), Sadiq al-Sindl served as an important link in the
Madinan chains of authority connecting later figures of Islamic
scholarship, such as Muhammad Murtada al-Zabldl (1145-1205/
1732-90),36 Salih b. Muhammad al-cUmarI al-Fullanl (1166-1218/
33 Ahmad b. Zaynl Dahlan, Khuldsat al-Kaldmfi Baydn Umard" al-Balad al-

Hardm (Cairo: Maktabat al-Kulliyyat al-Azhariyya, 1977), 239.
34 Ibn Bishr, 'Unman al-Majd, 1:21-2.
35 Al-KittanI, Fihras al-Fahdris, 1:148-9; al-Zirikll, al-Aldm, 6:160; Kahhala,
Mi/jam al-Mu'allijtn, 10:76.
36 On al-Zabldl, see cAlI Mubarak, al-Khitat al-Tawfiqiyya ((Jairo: al-hlay a
al-'Amma lil-Kitab, 1970), 2:94; al-Kittanl, Fihras al-Fahdris, 1:165-6, 526-43,
220 BASHEER M. NAFI
1752-1803),37 and Muhammad b. cAlI al-Shawkanl (1760-1834).38

Another eminent student of Hayat al-Sindl is Muhammad b.
Ahmad b. Salim al-Saffarlnl (1 1 14-88/ 1702-74),39 one of the most
prolific Hanball scholars of the late eighteenth century. Al-Saffarlnl's
oeuvre covers a wide range of writings on hadith^fiqh and theology.
Born at Saffarln near the city of Nablus in Ottoman Palestine,
Muhammad al-Saffarlnl studied in Damascus with cAbd al-Ghanl
al-Nabuls! and Isma'Il al-'Ajluni, as well as in Madina with Hayat
al-Sindl and cAbdallah al-Basrl. He emerged as a highly regarded
cdlim among the Hanball (and non-Hanball) circles of Syria, Palestine
and Najd. It was, in fact, at the request of the 'ulama* of Najd that
he penned his treatise on theology, "al-Ajwiba al-Najdiyya Ji al-As'ila
al-Najdiyya" .* However, al-Saffarlnl's major contribution to theology
is his treatise, "al-Durra al-Mudiyya ft cAqd al-Firqa al-Mardvyya"41
which occupies a prominent position in modern Hanball literature.
As a scholar of kadith, al-Saffarlnl's reputation was so great that the
most learned of all hadith scholars at the time, the Cairene Muhammad
Murtada al-Zabldl, was keen to obtain an ijdza from him. In addition
to his scholarly achievement, al-Saffarlnl was also a socially and
politically active (dlim.
and 2:621-3; al-Zirikh, al-A'lam, 7:70. Although al-Jabarti's biography of al-

Zabldl is the best known, al-Kittanl's is by far the most accurate and detailed.
See also Stefan Reichmuth, "Murtada az-Zabidl (d. 1790) in Biographical
and Autobiographical Accounts: Glimpses of Islamic Scholarship in the 18th
Century," Die Welt des Islams, 39:1 (1999), 64-102.
37 Al-KittanI, Fihras al-Fahdris, 2:901-6.
38 On al-Shawkani, see cAbd al-Mutcal al-Sacidi, al-Mujaddidun fT al-Isldm
(Cairo: Maktabat al-Adab, 1962), 472-5; Husayn b. Abdallah al-Amri, The
Yemen in the 18th and 19th Centuries: A Political and Intellectual History (London:
Ithaca Press, 1985); Rudolph Peters, "Idjtihad and Taqlld in 18th and 19th
Century Islam," Die Welt des Islams, XX (1980): 132-45; Bernard Haykal,
Revival and Reform in Islam: The Legacy of Muhammad al-Shawkdm (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003).
39 Muhammad Jamil al-Shatti, Mukhtasar Tabaqdt al-Handbila (Beirut: Dar
al-Kitab al-Arabl, 1986), 140-3; al-Muradl, Silk al-Durar, 4:31-2; al-Kittanl,
Fihras al-Fahdris, 2:1 102-5; al-Zirikll, al-A(ldm, 6:14; Kahhala, Mu'jam al-Mu'allifin,
8:262.
40 Ihsan al-Nimr, Tdrikh Jabal Nablus wa'l-Balqa' (Nablus: Matbacat al-Nasr
al-Tijariyya, 1961), 2:59.
41 Al-Saflanni later wrote an elaborate commentary on "al-Durra al-
Mudiyya." See Muhammad al-Saflarlnl (al-Hanball), Lawdmi1 al- Anwar al-
Bahiyya wa-Sawdti1 al-Asrdr al-Athariyya: Sharh al-Durra al-Mudiyya fi Aqidat al-
Firqa al-Mardiyya, 2 vols. (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islaml, 1991).
A TEACHER OF IBN ABD AL-WAHHAB 221
Another student of Hayat al-Sindi, and a major figure in early

modern Islamic culture, is Muhammad b. Ismacll al-Hasanl al-
San(anl (known also as Ibn al-Amlr al-SancanI, 1099-1182/1688-
1768),42 a highly influential Zaydl cdlim from Yemen. Al-ShawkanI,
the renowned YamanI reformist, regarded al-SancanI as an absolute
mujtahid.^ After receiving his early education in the Zaydl circles of
San'a', Ibn al-Amlr al-Sanani visited Madina during the Hajj seasons
of 1122/1711 and 1132/1720, joining the circles of Muhammad
al-Kuranl, cAbdallah al-Basrl, Muhammad 'Abd al-Hadl al-Sindl,
and Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl. Al-Sancanl's erudition in Zaydl
and Sunni traditions, which was unequalled, entitled him to claim
reaching the level of ijtihdd. His involvement in Yemeni political
conflicts, on the one hand, and his call for return to the Qur'an
and Sunna and his ferocious challenge to Zaydl traditional circles,
on the other, turned al-SancanI into a controversial figure whose
career was marked by turbulent periods of exile and intellectual
struggle. In his biography of him, Siddlq Hasan Khan wrote that
Ibn al-Amlr was not related to any madhhab, but that "his madhhab
was the hadith"*4
Considering the intricate and fluid nature of Islamic traditional
education, it may not be possible to identify the specific elements
that Hayat al-Sindl may have contributed to the making of each of
these three culamd\ Their careers, however, demonstrate an unmis-
takable pattern. All three were profoundly interested in hadith
scholarship and opposed strict adherence to the madhhab, challenging
the authority of accumulated juridical legacies by referring directly
to the Qur'an and the Sunna. With the exception of Muhammad
Sadiq al-Sindl, about whom we know very little, both al-Saffarlnl
and al-Sancani became aware of the Wahhabi movement. Al-Saffarinf s
positive response to the 'ulama* of Najd seems to have become part
of the heated intellectual debate engendered by the Wahhabi
movement inside and outside of the Arabian Peninsula.45 On the
other hand, al-SancanI's poem in praise of Muhammad b. cAbd al-
42 Al-KittanI, Fihras al-Fahdris, 1:513-4.

43 Muhammad b. cAlT al-Shawkani, dX-Badr al-Tali bi-Mahdsin man Bdd al-
Qarn al-Sdb? (Cairo: Matba(at al-Sa(ada, 1328 A.H.), 2:133-9. See also, al-
Zirikll, al-Acldm, 6:38.
44 Siddlq Hasan Khan, Abjad al-'Ulum, 3:156-7.
45 Al-Nimr, Tdrlkh Jabal Ndblus, 2:33-4.
222 BASHEER M. NAFI
Wahhab, effectively used at the time by the Wahhabi 'ulamd3 against

their detractors, is still widely regarded as one of the significant
pieces of the Wahhabi movement's literature. The poem, which
opens with the salutary verse, "Peace be upon Najd and those
dwelling in Najd",46 was a solid and coherent intellectual manifesto
in which al-San'anl expressed, in elegant and majestic Arabic, his
unreserved support for the main themes of the Wahhabi movement:
its emphasis on the Qur'an and the Sunna; its attack on divisions
between the madhkabs and on imitation (taqlid); and its rejection of
Ibn 'Arabl's doctrine of wahdat al-wujud.
However, these 'ulamd* were not 'Wahhabi' in the literal sense of
the word; they neither subscribed to Ibn cAbd al-Wahhab's radical
opinion of judging a Muslim who commits a grave sin as an apostate
and unbeliever, nor approved of the Wahhabis' spilling of Muslims'
blood and breaching the sanctity of Muslims' possessions. Although
a Hanball with strong reformist views, al-Saffarlnl was also a Sufi,47
who could not have approved of the ferocious anti-Sufi discourse
of the Wahhabi movement. Seven years after writing his poem in
praise of Ibn cAbd al- Wahhab, as the news of Saudi- Wahhabi military
expansion and acts of destruction multiplied, Ibn al-Amlr al-SancanI
retracted his support of Wahhabi ideas in a second, critical poem.48
In their reformist attitudes and varying levels of opposition to
dominant intellectual and social norms, none of these three 'ulama3
was prepared to go as far as Ibn cAbd al- Wahhab would go, not
only because the socio-political environment in which they lived
was fundamentally different from that of Najd, but also because
they held a different set of convictions. Like Muhammad Hayat al-
Sindl, their ideational world was more complex and fluid than that
of Ibn cAbd al- Wahhab. It is to the content of this world that we
turn to explore other dimensions of Hayat al-Sindl's intellectual
impact.
46 For the full text of the poem, see Qasim Ghalib Ahmad, H. A. al-
Siyaghl, M. A. al-Akwah, A. al-Samahl, and M. I. Zayid, Ibn al-Amir wa cAsruh
(SanV: Islamic Cultural Center of Yemen, n. d.), 157-9.
47 Al-Jabarti, Tdnkh, 1:468-70.
4y For the text of the second poem and a discussion of the controversy
over its attribution to al-SancanI, see Ahmad, al-Siyaghl et al, Ibn al-Amir,
160-8.
HadTth, Madhhabism and Ijtihdd
Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl was the product of Islamic reformist

currents that had begun to take shape with the rise of Ibrahim al-
Kuranl in the second half of the seventeenth century. A wide range
of the ideas expressed by Hayat al-Sindl, such as the revival of
hadith scholarship, opposition to popular tasawwuf as well as his
emphasis on the Qur'an and hadith, were already present within the
'ulamd' circles of Madina to which he belonged. Hayat al-Sindl's
contribution was to take some of these ideas to their logical con-
clusions, to transform intellectual orientations into a coherent message,
and to defend the Islamic authenticity of this message. In his attempt
to re-interpret the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud in accordance with
the orthodox Islamic view, Ibrahim al-Kuranl emphasized the position
of the Qur'an and Sunna as the ultimate frame of reference, stating,
"The Qur'an is the criterion of all criteria, judges all books and is
judged by no book.... And the Sunna of the Prophet is its elabora-
tion."49 During the decades immediately following the death of al-
Kuranl, there was a dramatic increase in the number of commentaries
on hadith collections, written by his Madinan students and junior
colleagues. cAbdallah al-Basrl edited the six major Sunni collections
of hadith, and Muhammad cAbd al-Hadl al-Sindl wrote commentaries
on all six of them, in addition to a commentary on the Musnad of
Ahmad b. Hanbal. This work, which amounted to a total revival
of hadith scholarship, points to a strong tendency for restoring hadith
as a primary source of religious beliefs and practices. Muhammad
Hayat al-Sindl's role was to affirm this fundamental shift in Islamic
culture.
In a short but focused tract, Tuhfat al-AndmfT al-Amal bi-Hadlth
al-JVabValayh al-Saldt wa'l-Saldm,50 Hayat al-Sindl presents an uncom-
promising defense of the position of hadith as a locus of religious
authority, second only to the Qur'an. There are few of Hayat al-
Sindl's own words in Tuhfat al-Andm; instead, he develops his argument
by systematically recalling other sources and opinions, thereby
49 Ibrahim b. Hasan al-Kuranl, "Ithaf al-Dhakl bi-Sharh al-Tuhfa al-

Mursala ila al-Nayyi", ms. 228 tasawwuf, al-Azhar Library, Cairo, 14-16.
50 Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi, Tuhfat al-Anamfi al-Amal bi-Hadlth al-Nabi
'alayh al-Saldt wa'l-Saldm, ed. Abu cAlI Taha bu-Srayh (Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm,
1993).
224 BASHEER M. NAFI
manifesting a deep awareness of the gravity of the issues involved.

Hayat al-Sindl begins by succinctly describing the goal of his epistle
as a discussion of the type of hadith that is a source of action,
whether it is sound (sahih) or good (hasan). He proceeds by citing the
most relevant Qur'anic verses, which command Muslims to abide
by the teachings and instructions of the Prophet, followed by the
citation of two hadiths, attributed directly to the Prophet himself, to
the same effect. Hayat al-Sindl's message begins to acquire another
more specific dimension when he moves on to quote authorities of
the early Islamic generations: Companions of the Prophet, their
followers, and disciples of the followers.
Referring to al-Dariml's hadith collection, Hayat al-Sindl reports
that cUmar b. cAbd al-cAz!z (d. 101/720), the Umayyad caliph,
said, "There is no ray (independent opinion) in the Book of God;
the ray of the Imams (i.e. the grand 'ulama') is [to be considered
only] in what is not clarified by the Book or cannot be ascribed to
a Sunna from the Prophet of Allah."51 The question that lay at the
heart of the debate about the position of hadith was not the authority
of the Prophet, which had already been established and could not
have been a matter of dispute in Hayat al-Sindl's lifetime; it was
rather whether a Muslim scholar must abide by the established, or
dominant, opinion of the school of law to which he adheres, or
whether he is required first to seek the authority of hadith. It is in
this contested field that Hayat al-Sindl's reference to cUmar b.
cAbd al-cAz!z (and others, such as the Companions, Ibn 'Abbas and
Abu Hurayra) was meant to function. According to Hayat al-Sindl,
the early Muslim authorities clearly understood, and subsequently
agreed, that ray could operate only in the absence of related evidence
from the Qur'an or hadith.
These two themes: the re-assertion of the position of hadith as a
locus of religious authority and the precedence of hadith over the
opinion of the madhhab, would become the central themes of Hayat
al-Sindl's thesis. But even if the most partisan adherents of the
madhhabs could not openly oppose the first theme, the second theme
had to be further validated by the authority of the madhhah themselves.
Being an (dlim of strong Hanafi background, Hayat al-Sindl was
conscious of the influence of madhhabi culture and of the necessity
51 Ibid., 116.
to challenge the dominance of this culture from within its own

discourse. Hence, Hayat al-Sindl dedicates the larger part of Tuhfat
al-Andm to highlighting the opinions of a number of Muslim jurists,
beginning with Abu Hanlfa and al-Shafi'T (d. 204/820), eponyms
of the two widely spread schools of law. For Hayat al-Sindl, the
essence of the teachings attributed to Abu Hanlfa and al-ShaficI is
that their opinions were to be discarded if it was subsequently
discovered that they were not in accord with Qur'anic evidence or
sound hadJth?2
Without delving into the jurisprudential differences between the
Hanafi and ShafTl treatments of hadXth, he quotes a report by al-
Khatlb al-Baghdadl (d. 463/1071) indicating that Abu al-Qasim
al-Darakl (d. 375/985), the eminent Shafit jurist of the fourth century
A.H., would sometimes issue afatwd (legal opinion) that was not in
agreement with established ShafTl doctrine, basing his opinion instead
on the authority of hadith. This argument is repeatedly reinforced
by similar views expressed by later Hanafi and ShafTl scholars,
including al-'Izz b. cAbd al-Salam (d. 660/1262), Qurat-Amrih al-
Hamldl al-Ruml (d. 860/1456), and 'Abdallah b. Muhammad b.
al-Shuhna (d. 920/1514). However, Hayat al-Sindl recognized the
force of the argument advanced by supporters of madhhabism, attributed
to Abu Yusuf (d. 182/798), the disciple of Abu Hanlfa (d. 150/
767): "It is imperative for the layman ('dmmi) to follow the jurists."53
Of course, it was the logic embedded in this view that legitimated
the madhhabi system and contributed to sustaining it over the centuries,
for only the trained and knowledgeable jurist can safely engage the
primary texts and is capable of deriving a legal ruling from them.
To this logic, Hayat al-Sindl offers a complex response that he
develops carefully and purposefully.
He begins by suggesting that what Abu Yusuf really meant by
"'aramf is the ignorant commoner who is unable to grasp the meaning
of the text and is unfamiliar with the methods of interpretation
(ta'wit). It follows that if the excuse for imitation is ignorance, the
(dlim has no such excuse and is always required to support his
52 See ibid., 19-21, where al-Sindl cites the Hanafi scholar, cAli b. Husayn
al-Bukhari al-Zandwistl (d. ca. 400/1009-10), for Abu Hanlfa's opinion, and
the ShafVl scholars cAbd al-Malik al-Juwaynl (d. 478/1085-6), for al-ShafiTs
ODinion.
53 Ibid., 22.
226 BASHEER M. NAFI
opinion with textual evidence.54 The (dlim, according to Hayat al-

Sindl, cannot blindly follow the madhhabh opinion, for both Abu
Hanlfa and Abu Yusuf asserted that "it is not permissible for anyone
to take our saying without learning where we had derived it
from."55 In other words, one cannot be an cdlim and imitator at the
same time. Hence, if a follower of Abu Hanlfa, Malik (d. 179/795),
al-ShafTl, or Ibn Hanbal, finds that the opinion of another madhhab
is stronger than his, he is required to adopt the stronger opinion.
As for the non-'dlim, once an indicant (dalil) in the Qur'an or hadith
has become known (either orally communicated or in a written
form) and clearly understood, it is the Qur'an or hadith that is to be
followed, rather than the opinion of the madhhab. Drawing on the
Hanafi jurist {AlI b. Abl al-cIzz (731-779/1331-90),56 Hayat al-Sindl
suggests that partisan madhhabism is a source of disunity and inner
division, which were "the causes behind the Muslims' subjugation
by the Crusaders and Mongols."
Towards the end of his tract, Hayat al-Sindi refers to three
authorities: (1) He cites cAbd al-Wahhab al-Shacram (897-973/1492-
1565), the Cairene Sufi reformist and hadith scholar, as saying that
once a hadith is confirmed, the cdlim should take it as a dalil, regardless
of whether the Imam (viz. the eponym) of the madhhab to which he
belongs had done so or not, for the Imam might have not heard
of that hadith. Al-Shacranl, according to Hayat al-Sindi, rejected
the common belief that Abu Hanlfa gave precedence to analogical
reason (qiyds) over a text and asserted that one may not engage in
qiyds in the presence of a text. (2) In his Talbis Iblis, the eminent
Hanball scholar cAbd al-Rahman b. al-jawzl (510-97/1126-1200)
writes, "...[T]he imitator (al-muqallid) is not confident in what he
imitated, and in imitation there is an annulment of the utility of
reason (aql), for caql was created for contemplation and deliberation."
(3) Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya (691-751/1292-1350), the Salafi, neo-
54 Ibid., 36 and 42.

55 Ibid., 30.
56 (Ali b. cAli b. Muhammad b. Abi al-cIzz was a Hanafi jurist and judge
in the city of Damascus. His commentary on al-Tahawfs theological treatise,
Shark al-Aqida al-Tahdwiyya (Riyadh: Dar cAlam al-Kutub, 1997), which was
highly influential among the late Salafi circles, established his position in the
Salafi line of 'ulama', despite his Hanafi affiliation. On Ibn Abl al-cIzz, see
also Kahhala, Mu'jam al-Mu'allifin, 7:156; al-Baghdadl, Hadiyat al-Arijin, 1,
column 726.
A TEACHER OF IBN 'aBD AL-WAHHAB 227
Hanball scholar, and dedicated student of Ibn Taymiyya, summed

up the argument that Hayat al-Sindl wished to advance as follows:
no human being, whatever his knowledge, can be accorded authority
higher than that of the Prophet; a verified, sound hadith takes
precedence over any juristic view; and it is obligatory to abide by
a legal rule {hukm) defined by God (i.e. rooted in the Qur'an) or the
Prophet (i.e. a hadith), whereas it is only permissible to follow a
hukm reached by human reasoning.57
The message of Tuhfat al-Andm is simple and direct: in Islam,
religious authority lies first in the Qur'an and then in the Sunna of
the Prophet, as embodied in the hadith. For this reason, juridical
opinion may never supersede a textual indicant found in the Qur'an
or hadith. Thus, Hayat al-Sindl seeks to reestablish the authority of
the primary text at the expense of the madhhabi dominance of pre-
modern Islamic culture. Except for a passing reference to the issues
of abrogation (naskh) and analogical reason (qiyds), he paid no attention
to widely discussed issues in Islamic legal theory, such as the conditions
that control the process of dealing with the scriptures and the
derivation of rules (ahkdm) from them, or the skills required of an
cdlim who engages in this process.
Nevertheless, Hayat al-Sindl's approach stems from his a priori
recognition of the power and influence of the madhhabs. By invoking
the authority of the most renowned figures of the madhhah in support
of his own position, Hayat al-Sindl suggests that partisan followers
of the madhhabs in fact ignore and negate the teachings of their
masters. Although his aim is to de-legitimize the madhhabi system,
Hayat al-Sindl never places the madhhabi practice outside the legitimate
Islamic circle. But if Hayat al-Sindl is correct in asserting the
agreement of all founders of the schools of fiqh on the priority of
the Qur'an and the hadith, how could he explain the acknowledged
differences between their opinions? It was to this question that he
dedicated another of his works, al-Iqdf cald Sabab al-Ikhtildf.58
This tract, even shorter than Tuhfat al-Andm, is a testimony to the
unspoken influence of Ibn Taymiyya on Hayat al-Sindl. The treatise,
in its entirety, reads like a commentary on Ibn Taymiyya's powerful,
Raf al-Maldm 'an al-A'immat al-Acldm, in which he formulated a
57 Al-Sindl, Tuhfat al-Andm, 47-51.

58 Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl, al-Iqaf'ald Sabab al-Ikhtilaf ed. Mashcal al-
MutayrT (Beirut: Dar Ibn Hazm, 1996).
228 BASHEER M. NAFI
framework for understanding the historical development of the Islamic

madhhabi system and its relationship to the text, especially the hadith.
Ibn Taymiyya's main concern, like that of the whole Salafi school,
is to re-establish the unity of reference [marji'iyya) for the umma.
Recognizing the central position of the Sunni schools of law in the
Muslim community, Ibn Taymiyya admits that the four Imams
have become the most accepted and followed culamd\b9
According to Ibn Taymiyya, none of the four Imams deliberately
sought to disagree with the Sunna of the Prophet.60 If an opinion
attributed to one of the Imams was found to disagree with a sound
hadith, one must assume the existence of an excuse for such dis-
agreement. All such excuses can be attributed to one or more of
three principal categories: (a) The Prophet did not make the statement
found in the hadith; (b) the issue in question is not indicated by the
hadith; or (c) the rule inferred by the hadith had been abrogated.61
Ibn Taymiyya demonstrates his mastery of hadith and Islamic legal
theory by laying out all probable outcomes of each category. What
Ibn Taymiyya purports to do is to assert the formal authority of
hadith by calling into question the legitimacy of the perpetuation of
madhhabi divisions. From his perspective, madhhabi differences stem
not from the founding imams' denial of the authority of the Sunna
or from some inherent problems in the corpus of hadith, but rather
from an objective situation: the different levels of knowledge, and
variations in the respective methodologies of the Imams, and the
availability of hadith in various parts of the Muslim realm during
the early Abbasid period. But while Raf al-Maldm clearly seeks to
de-legitimize the integration of the madhhabi system into the structure
of religion, it may be the closest that Ibn Taymiyya came to accepting
the de facto plurality of the juridical enterprise,62 if not the institu-
59 On the formation of the four Sunni madhhabs, see Christopher Melchert,

The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th- 70th Centuries C. E. (Leiden: Brill,
1997); Wael B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law (Cambridge;
Cambridge University Press, 2005), 150-77.
60 Ahmad b. Taymiyya, Raf al-Maldm 'an al-A'imma al-Aclam (Beirut: al-
Maktab al-Islaml, 1392 AH), 9-10.
61 Ibid., 11 ff.
62 In a response to Ibn Taymiyya's position, Muhammad Sa'id al-Badn,
a conservative SalafT writer, has recently re-edited and published Raf al-
Maldm, with an introduction and two appendices, in which he tries to refute
different aspects of Ibn Taymiyya's thesis. See Ibn Taymiyya, Raf al-Maldm
tionalization of the doctrines underpinning this plurality.

In al-Iqaf, Hayat al-Sindl follows in the footsteps of his master,
making almost the same argument but in a simplified manner.63
Hayat al-Sindl first declares the existence of differences in the Islamic
approaches to the Sunna of the Prophet as normal. He underlines
this normality by indicating the cases in which Companions of the
Prophet, during his lifetime, interpreted his instruction in a different
manner. By advancing this argument, Hayat al-Sindl seeks to attribute
these differences to different levels of understanding. He then reaffirms
the norm by mentioning instances associated with the four rightly-
guided Caliphs, who were the closest Companions to the Prophet,
in which their conduct occasionally diverged from the Sunna due
to the lack of knowledge of the relevant hadfth.^ For Hayat al-
Sindi, the increasing degree of diversity in the generations following
that of the Companions was a logical consequence of the expansion
of the Muslim community and the increasing distance from the
time of the Prophet; hence, the differences between the four madhhah
are largely related to this historical process.
Two main causes lay at the root of this process: the varying levels
of human knowledge and understanding, and the inherent sus-
ceptibility of the text to different interpretations, depending on
linguistic structure, composition, and discursive context.65 Drawing
on the Andalusian Zahirl scholar Ibn Hazm (384-456/994-1064)
and on Ibn Taymiyya and his disciples Ibn al-Qayyim and Ibn
Kathlr (700-74/1300-73), and invoking a range of concepts from
Islamic legal theory and the sciences ofhadith, Hayat al-Sindl separates
the human and textual factors behind the inevitable process of
diversification into defined elements. These include abrogation (naskh);
disagreement over the validity and function of dhdd (i.e., the large
number of solitary hadiths transmitted by a chain of single or a few
'an al-A'imma al-Aldm, ed. Muhammad Sacid al-Badn (Cairo: Dar al-Kitab al-
Misri, 1991).
63 The same theme underlines a similar treatise written later by Wali-
Allah DihlawT, entitled al-Insqf ft baydn Asbdb al-Ikhtildf, incorporated as a
chapter into his Hujjat Allah al-Bdligha (Cairo: Dar al-Turath, 1977), l:140ff.
For a further discussion of this theme, see Martin Riexinger, Sana'ulldh Amritsdn
(1868-1948) und die Ahl-i Hadith im Punjab unter britischer Herrschaft (Wurzburg:
Ergon, 2004), 75ff.
64 Al-Sindl, al-Iqaf, 25-9.
65 Ibid., 30.
230 BASHEER M. NAFI
narrators),66 which are the bulk oihadxth traditions; problems associated

with defining the legal inferences of the text (for example, general
and specific, and absolute and restricted); and the sometimes opposing
indicants derived from two hadiths addressing the same issue. Beyond
relativizing the juridical opinions, Hayat al-Sindl refutes madhhabi
divisions by reasserting the essential unity of the Islamic faith: the
belief in one God, one Prophet and one religion. Quoting Ahmad
b. Muhammad al-TahawT (d. 321/933), the Hanafi, Salafi-oriented
scholar, Hayat al-Sindl writes, "Should I adhere to everything that
Abu Hanlfa had said? Is not the imitator either an extremist or
stupid?"67
Although similar to Ibn Taymiyya's Raf al-Maldm, al-Iqdf lacks
the complexity of Ibn Taymiyya's argument. But Hayat al-Sindl's
work is not less effective, mainly because as a HanafT and Sufi
scholar he was very much a part of his intellectual environment
and, unlike Ibn Taymiyya, was not regarded as controversial. Like
Ibn Taymiyya, and unlike his own approach in Tuhfat al-Andm,
Hayat al-Sindl makes use of Islamic legal theory in al-Iqdf, but only
to substantiate his conviction in the primacy of the hadith as an
essential part of the founding text. Following in the footsteps of Ibn
Taymiyya, Hayat al-Sindl makes no attempt to reject juridical diversity
or to entirely dismiss the madhhabi system; his challenge to madhhabism
is subtle and intricate. Towards the end of his tract, he writes,
. . .most of the issues reported in usul al-fiqh are taken from the opinions
of the Imams [of the madhhabs] ; if one looks to some of the followers
of the Imams and their opinions, he will find many which are derived
from a single origin... the later [viz., scholar of a madhhab] may agree
with the predecessor or disagree, may imitate him or oppose him;
and right may lie with the predecessor or with the later. Fairness is
the best way in dealing with the question of differences, and the
return to agreement is better than division."68
In other words, the opinions of human beings can be only relatively

correct, and should neither be sanctified or immortalized like the
Qur'an and the Sunna.
Two other works of Hayat al-Sindl are available: in Sharh al-
66 On dhdd, see Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence

(Cambridge; Islamic Text Socity, 1991), 402; Wael B. Hallaq, A History of
Islamic Legal Theories (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 27.
67 Al-Sindl, al-Ithdf 43.
68 Ibid., 46.
Arbdin al-Nawawiyya69 and Fath al-Ghafurfi Wad* al-Aydi'ald al-Sudur,70

he applies his theory about how the material of hadith should be
treated. The hadith is either sought for its own sake as a source of
an Islamic moral, spiritual, or legal position, or is referred to as
evidence to give validity to one legal view over others. In both
cases, however, the hadith is understood directly without reference
to the nuances of the Islamic legal conventions.
Shark al-Arba'in is a commentary on al-Nawawfs collection of
forty (actually forty-two) hadiths. Some of these hadiths are of moral
or spiritual significance, while others have clearly been used by
Muslim scholars to infer a legal rule or command. It is in the latter
category of hadiths that one can determine Hayat al-Sindl's attitude
to the legacy of fiqh and usul al-fiqh. The first of the forty hadith
upon which Hayat al-Sindl comments is one that has played an
important role in both Jiqh and usul al-fiqh. According to al-NawawT
and other hadith scholars, the Prophet is reported to have said,
"innamd al-a'mdl bVl-niyydt ... (acts are judged according to their
intentions ...)".71 Described by Schacht as "a fundamental concept
of the whole of Islamic law," the principle of intent, as expressed
in this hadith, was extensively elaborated upon by classical and pre-
modern Muslim jurists, especially with regard to civil transactions
(mu'amaldt), acts of worship (Hbdddt), and criminal law.72 By contrast,
Hayat al-Sindl adopts a direct interpretive approach to this hadith,
highlighting two major and comparatively general inferences: that
man's acts are weighed by God according to the intent on which
each act is based; and that man's responsibility for an act is determined
by his own intent.73 As a Hanafi scholar, Hayat al-Sindl must have
69 See note 23.

70 See note 10.
71 Ahmad b. Hajar al-cAsqalanI, Fath al-Bdri bi-Sharh Sahih al-Bukhari, ed.
Muhammad Fu'ad cAbd al-Baql and Muhibb al-Dln al-Khatlb (Cairo: Dar
al-Rayyan li'1-Turath, 1987), 1:15; al-Sindl, Shark al-Arbdin al-Nawawiyya, 25.
72 Joseph Schacht, An Introduction to Islamic Law (Oxford: The Clarendon
Press, 1964), 1 16. See also, EI2, s. v. "Niyya"; Baberjohansen, "The Valorization
of the Body in Muslim Sunni Law," Princeton Papers: Interdisciplinary Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies, 4 (1996): 75-1 17; Oussama Arabi, "Contract Stipulations
(Shurut) in Islamic Law: The Ottoman Majalla and Ibn Taymiyya," International
Journal of Middle East Studies, 30, 1 (1998), 29-50; Brinkley Messick, "Indexing
the Self: Intent and Expression in Islamic Legal Acts," Islamic Law and Society,
8:2 (2001), 151-78.
73 Al-Sindl, Shark al-Arba'in al-Nawawiyya, 26-7.
232 BASHEER M. NAFI
been aware of the rich, elaborate juridical discourse on the nature

and implications of intent; yet, he seems to think that juridical
discussions are not relevant to his simple understanding of the hadith.
This approach underlines all of Hayat al-Sindl's comments on al-
Nawawi's collection.
The other tract, Fath al-Ghafurfi Wadc al-Aydi 'aid al-Sudur, deals
with a controversial issue relating to the form of the Islamic ritual
prayer: does one place the right hand over the left (qabd) or let the
arms down (sadl) during prayer. Among the Sunni schools of law,
Malik (followed by the majority of MalikI jurists) regarded sadl as
the correct practice, basing his opinion on the practice ('amat) of
the Madinans, which in itself is a source of law for Malik. The
Hanafis, ShafTis and Hanbalis, on the other hand, held for qabd.
But even the supporters of qabd differ on the exact position in
which the hands should be placed: for the majority of HanafTs, it
is under the umbilicus, while for the ShafTls and Hanbalis it is the
chest.74 Hayat al-Sindl, who was a HanafT 'dlim, seems to have
angered other HanafT 'ulamd' at Madina by expressing his support
for the ShafVl-Hanball view, which is also that of the Salafi-oriented
eulamd\ Responding to Hayat al-Sindi, another HanafT scholar of
Madina, Muhammad Hashim b. cAbd al-Ghaffur al-Sindl (d. 1 1 74/
1760-1), wrote a treatise entitled "Dirham al-surra ji wad al-yadayn
taht al-surra"15
In his book, Hayat al-Sindl lists a series of hadith supporting the
view that during prayer the right hand should be placed over the
left on the chest. The hadith that he lists are all quoted from major
sources of Prophetic traditions, including the Musnad of Ahmad b.
Hanbal (d. 241/855), the SahTh of al-Bukhart (d. 245/870), Kitdb al-
Sunan of Abu DaVud al-Sijistanl (d. 275/889), Kitdb al-Sunan al-
Kubrd of Abu Bakr al-Bayhaql (d. 458/1066), and al-Tamhid of Ibn
(Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1071). Although most classical Muslim scholars
classify these hadiths as sound or acceptable, Hayat al-Sindl is never
critical of isndds, except when a specific hadith is not in agreement
74 Muwaffaq al-Din b. Qudama, al-Mughm, ed. cAbdallah b. cAbd al-Muhsin

al-Turkl and (Abd al-Fattah Muhammad al-Hulw (Cairo: Hajar, 1992), 2:140-
1 . For a recent discussion, see Yasin Dutton, iUAmal v. HadXth in Islamic Law:
The Case of Sadl al-Tadayn (holding one's hand by one's side) While Doing
the Prayer," Islamic Law and Society, 3:1 (1996), 13-40.
75 Al-Sindi, Fath al-Ghqffur, 59-60, note 4 (by the editor, Muhammad al-
Aczaml).
with his argument, nor does he discuss the relation between the
soundness/weakness of the hadith and the degree of its validity.
When dealing with the hadith as evidence, Hayat al-Sindl generally
ignores the usulT methodology. Similarly, he is not concerned with
classical opinions of which he disapproves, with the legacy of the
juridical debate over the issue he is dealing with, or with the
interpretive possibilities of the text or context of a given hadith. For
example, Hayat al-Sindl quotes a hadith in the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal
narrated by Yahya b. Sacld, ... by Qabisa b. Halb from his father,
who said:
I have seen the Prophet - peace be upon him - concluding his

prayer [by turning] to his right and his left, and I have seen him
placing his hand on his chest. [Yahya (i.e., b. Sa'ld) described [it as]
the right [hand] over the left at the wrist joint.]76
In his analysis of this hadith, al-Sindl does not examine the reliability
of its narrators, whether Qablsa's father witnessed the Prophet's
prayer on one or more than one occasion, or whether the authority
of this hadith can outweigh the authority of the Madinan practice.
Here, as with all other hadith, Hayat al-Sindl's support of a specific
form of qabd is derived from direct, general understanding of the
hadith, and the authority of the hadith seems to be rooted in the
authority of its source-book and its compiler. Without any interpretive
move, the hadith of the Prophet, in itself and as it is recorded in the
classical hadith collections, is taken as evidence and a source of law.
As long as he accepts the hadith as correct, no further determination
is made between the degree of its correctness and the strength of
the legal inference derived from it. The question arises: what exactly
was the source of inspiration for such a method? The Sunni schools
of law were established and became dominant institutions already
in the 4th/ 10th century. Hayat al-Sindl himself, at least formally,
was a HanafT scholar. Which influences, then, had made him abandon
the established jurisprudential methodology and turn to the direct
approach to hadJth?
76 Al-Sindl, Fath al-Ghaffur, 23.
234 BASHEER M. NAFI
The Return ofAshab al-Hadlth
One source of inspiration for Hayat al-Sindlwas the eighth/fourteenth

century reformist Ibn Taymiyya, and his eminent disciple Ibn Qayyim
al-Jawziyya. Despite their controversial reputations, both had been
rehabilitated in Madinan culamd3 circles since Ibrahim al-Kuranl in
the latter part of the seventeenth century. Both are quoted with a
clear degree of reverence in some of Hayat al-Sindl's works.
Ibn Taymiyya, who defended Sunnism against non-Sunni sects
and sought to uphold the tenets of what he saw as orthodox Islam,
was equally critical of the Ashcarl and Mu'tazill theologies and of
the excesses of tasawwuf and the concept of wahdat al-wujud.11 He
opposed taqlid, called for ijtihdd and for the return to the Qur'an
and Sunna as the primary sources of Islamic law and theology. Yet,
Ibn Taymiyya's influence cannot on its own explain Hayat al-
Sindl's approach to haditk and fiqh. Ibn Taymiyya was a Hanbali
jurist with a powerful training mfiqh and usul al-fiqh. In a book of
legal theory, which had been started by his father and grandfather
and completed by him, Ibn Taymiyya shows his commitment to
Hanbali jurisprudence, and goes even further by accepting the
principle of qiyds (analogical reason), which had been incorporated
only reluctantly by the Hanbali scholars who preceded him.78 Qiyds
was also defended, and in an elaborate manner, by Ibn Qayyim al-
Jawziyya.79 What appears to have troubled Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn
al-Qayyim was the increasing tendency among jurists of the post-
classical period to give precedence to madhhab doctrine over the
Qur'an and Sunna, to use ra3y (independent opinion) freely, and, in
the words of Ibn al-Qayyim, "to give difatwd in contradiction to the
text."80 The ideas of Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim are reflected
77 For elaborate discussions of the life and works of Ibn Taymiyya, see
Henri Laoust, Essai sure les doctrines sociales et politiques de Taki-d-Din b. Taimiya
(Cairo: Institut Francois d'Archeologie, 1939); Muhammad Abu Zahra, Ibn
Taymiyya: Haydtuh wa 'Asruh, Ard'uh wa Fiqhuh (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi,
1991, new edition).
78 Ahmad b. Taymiyya, Abd al-Hahm b. Taymiyya, and Abd al-Salam
b. Taymiyya, al-Musawwada, ed. Muhammad Muhyi al-Dln Abd al-Hamld
(Cairo: Matba'at al-Madanl, 1964), 365-98.
79 Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Flam al-Muwaqqi1 in can Rabb al-'Alamin, ed.
cIsam al-Dln al-Sababltl (Cairo: Dar al-Hadith, 1993), 1:120-326 and 2:5-
118.
80 Ibid., 2:236.
in Hayat al-Sindl's system of thought, but his reliance on hadith

while ignoring other instruments of usul al-fiqh more closely resemble
the methodology of ashdb al-hadith than that of the great fourteenth-
century reformists.
Ashdb al-hadith (traditionists) were a powerful and highly influential
group of Muslim scholars during the period before the institu-
tionalization of the Sunni schools of law in the 4th / 1 0th century.
Although almost all ashdb al-hadith were scholars oi hadith (muhaddiths),
not all scholars of hadith were traditionists.81 Ashdb al-hadith advocated
Scriptural authority in theology and law, as against the more or
less rationalistic methodology of ashdb al-ra'y (literally, proponents
of opinion). The origin of ashdb al-hadith, which is still an open
question among students of classical Islam, is closely linked to the
debate about when, where and why Qur'an and hadith became
sources of law.82 There is no doubt, however, that the split between
the two groups became sharper and more acute in the third/ninth
century as a result of the controversy over the creation of the
Qur'an. Among the most eminent of the traditionists in the third
century A.H. were cAbdallah b. al-Mubarak (d. 181/797),83 Yahya
81 The translation of the term ashdb at- Hadith (sing, sahib al-hadith) into
English is problematic, mainly because of the overlapping meanings of ashdb
al-hadith and muhaddiths. George Makdisi ("Ash'arl and Ashcarites in Islamic
Religious History 1 : The Ashcarite Movement and Muslim Orthodoxy," Studia
Islamica, 17 (1962), 49), followed by Christopher Melchert {Formation, 2-3),
used the term "traditionalists" for ashdb al-hadith and "traditionists" for muhaddiths.
Earlier, however, Schacht (Origins, 140ff.) made no distinction between ashdb
al-hadith and muhaddiths, rendering both into the English as "traditionists".
Here, I use "traditionists" to denote ashdb al-hadith, and "scholars of hadith",
or "scholars of Prophetic traditions", for muhaddiths. The term "traditional"
will be used in its broad social scientific sense to denote taqlidi, i. e. dominant,
conventional, conservative and established. For this sense of the term "tra-
ditional", see Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Traditional Islam in the Modern World (London:
KPI, 1987); William A. Graham, "Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in
Interpretation," Journal of Interdisciplinary History, 23 (1993), 495-522; Basheer
M. Nafi, "Abu al-Thana' al-AlusI: An Alim, Ottoman Mufti, and Exegete of
the Qur'an " International Journal of Middle East Studies, 34 (2002), 465-94.
82 For the debate about the Qur'an and hadith and the origins of Islamic
law, see Schacht, Origins, 141-9; G. H. Juynboll, Islamic Tradition (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1983), chap.l; Melchert, Formation, chap. 1; Harald
Motzki, The Origins of Islamic Jurisprudence: Meccan Fiqh before the Classical Schools,
trans. Marian Katz (Leiden: Brill, 2002); Hallaq, Origins, chaps. 1 and 5.
83 Muhammad b. Sacd, Kitdb al-Tabaqat al-Kabir, ed. cAli Muhammad cUmar
(Cairo: Maktabat al-KhanjT, 2001), 9:376; Muhammad b. Ishaq b. al-Nadlm,
al-Fihrist, ed. Nahid Abbas 'Uthman (Doha: Dar Qutrl b. al-Fuja'a, 1985),
236 BASHEER M. NAFI
b. Macln (d. 233/847),84 Aba Bakr b. Abl Shayba (237/852),85 Ishaq

b. Rahawayh (d. 238/853),86 cAlI b. al-Madlnl (d. 258/873),87 and
the one scholar who emerged as the most eminent of them all,
Ahmad b. Hanbal (d. 241 /855).88
The opposition of ashdb al-hadith to ashdb al-ra'y involved the
following points:89 (1) the ashdb al-ra'y used legal devices (hiyat) by
which "one might apparently defeat the spirit of the law without
disobeying the letter"; (2) they commonly gave precedence to qiyds
or independent opinion over hadith; (3) they lacked humility and
showed impiety; (4) they were accused of being ignorant, "having
no sound basis of action," and of being willing to change their
position; and (5) they were prominent among those who professed
that the Qur'an was created, whereas ashdb al-hadith believed that
the Qur'an was the "Speech of God". Although critical of the
rationalist jurisprudents' use of qiyds, the principal instrument of
ijtihdd in the classical period, ashdb al-hadith were not opposed to
ijtihdd itself. In fact, ashdb al-hadith were unreservedly critical of
tag lid and the reliance on the individual opinion of preceding Imams.
The ijtihdd of ashdb al-hadith, however, was based on the authority
of the text, or one might say that the hadith's statement itself was
their opinion. But since training in jurisprudence was not a pre-
requisite for a traditionist-jurisprudent, and since ashdb al-hadith
were not organized in a formal school, they showed a considerable
degree of variation in their outlook on Jiqh and the use of hadith.90
480; Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Khallikan, Wqfaydt al-A'ydn wa-Anbd* Abnd* al-

Zamdn, ed. Ihsan c Abbas (Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1994), 3:32-4; 'Abdallah b. Muslim
b. Qutayba, al-Ma'drif, ed. Tharwat 'Ukasha (Cairo: al-Hay'a al-Miriyya al-
cAmma lil-Kitab, 1960), 511.
84 Ibn Sacd, Kitdb al-Tabaqdt, 9:357; Ibn al-Nadlm, al-Fihrist, 485; Ibn
Khallikan, Wqfaydt al-A'ydn, 6:139-43.
85 Ibn al-Nadlm, al-FihrisL 481.
86 Ibn al-Nadlm, al-Fihrist, 482-3; Ibn Khallikan, Wqfaydt al-A'ydn, 1:199-
201.
87 Ibn al-Nadlm, al-FihrisL 485.
88 Ibn Sacd, Kitdb al-Tabaqdt, 9:358; Ibn al-Nadlm, al-Fihrist, 481-2; Ibn
Khallikan, Wqfaydt al-A'ydn, 1:63-5. On Ibn Hanbal's method, see Susan
Spectorsky, "Ahmad ibn Hanbal's Fiqh" Journal of the American Oriental Society,
102 (1982), 461-5.
89 Melchert, Formation, 8-13.
90 Ibn Rahawayh, for example, was not always consistent in his reliance
on HadTth or in his rejection of juristic opinion (Susan Spectorsky, "Hadith in
the Responses of Ishaq B. Rahwayh," Islamic Law and Society, 8:3 [2001],
By the early fourth/tenth century, the power and influence of

ashdb al-hadith began to decline, for the following reasons: first, the
high demands placed on the aspiring traditionist-jurisprudent, which
included memorizing thousands of hadiths and their chains of
narration, which became longer and longer with the passage of
time; and secondly, the powerful challenge posed by al-ShafiTs
method, which was based on a combination of scripture and qiyds.
Al-ShafiTs definition ofhadith as the hadxth of the Prophet represented
another challenge to ashdb al-hadith, whose vision of hadxth involved,
in addition to Prophetic traditions, those of the Companions and
sometimes even followers of the Companions.91 Gradually, traditionist-
jurisprudents were absorbed by the established Sunni schools of
law. In the words of Christopher Melchert, "The future of juris-
prudence belonged not to pure traditionalism but to a compromise
form: the Hanball school submitted to the forms of jurisprudence,
and the ShafTl, Hanafi, and MalikI schools submitted to the forms
of hadith:'92
This development, however, did not result in the total disappearance
of ashdb al-hadith; many traditionist-jurisprudents continued to emerge
from within the madhhabi system, perhaps not pure traditionists like
their ancestors of the third century A.H., yet, their emphasis on
hadlth was unmistakable. More than 100 years after the institutionali-
zation of the madhhabs, the Andalusian Yusuf b. cAbd al-Barr (d.
463/1071),93 and the Iraqi al-Khatlb al-Baghdadl (d. 463/1071),94
were regarded as traditionist-jurisprudents: the first was formally a
MalikI jurist, while the second was ShafTl and a strong proponent
of Ash'ari theology. In his report of the death of al-Khatlb al-
Baghdadl, Ibn Khallikan quotes a story in which ashdb al-hadith
were still mentioned as a distinctive group in the second half of the
fifth/eleventh century. He writes, "al-Shaykh Abu Bakr b. al-Zahra*
al-Suft had prepared for himself a grave next to the grave of Bishr
407-31). Ibn Hanbal used qiyds only reluctantly and as a last resort (Ibn
Qayyim al-Jawziyya, Flam al-Muwaqqicin, vols. 39-40).
91 Schacht, Origins, 19; Melchert, Formation, 24-5.
92 Melchert, Formation, 31.
93 Ibn Khallikan, Wqfaydt al-Acydn, 7:66-72. For an example of Ibn cAbd
al-Barr's emphasis on hadxth, see his Jam? Baydn al-'Ilm wa-Fadluh, 2 vols.
(Cairo: al-Matba'a al-Munlriyya, 1978).
94 Ibn Khallikan, Wafaydt al-Aydn, 1:92-3. See also the excellent article in
EI2, s. v. "al-Khatlb al-Baghdadl" (R. Sellheim).
238 BASHEER M. NAFI
al-Hafi (the famous Sufi and scholar of hadith), God bless his soul,
and he used to go to that grave once a week, lay in it and read the
Qur'an. When Abu Bakr al-Khatlb (al-Baghdadl) died, ashdb al-
hadith went to Abu Bakr b. al-Zahra' and asked [his permission] to
bury al-Khatlb [al-Baghdadl] in the grave he had prepared ..."95
Although hadith scholarship continued to flourish throughout the
Islamic middle period, it is not possible at present to identify those
scholars of hadith who were inclined more toward the methodology
of classical ashdb al-hadith and those who leaned more to the traditional
madhhabi fiqh. In 10th/ 16th century Cairo, the great Sufi cAbd al-
Wahhab al-ShacranI, with whose works Hayat al-Sindl seems to
have been familiar, was both a ShafTl jurist and an assertive
traditionist.96 Moreover, rising interest in hadith among HanafT culamd'
preceded Hayat al-Sindi by more than a century, at the least.
Hayat al-Sindfs direct teacher was, of course, his fellow countryman
Muhammad b. cAbd al-Hadi al-Sindi. But even earlier, Mulla cAlI
b. Muhammad b. Sultan al-HarawI (d. 1014/1606), a HanafT jurist
and muhaddith from Herat, generated a strong response from the
'ulamd' of Mecca because of his denunciation of Ibn cArabl's doctrine
of wahdat al-wujud and his hadith-based jiqh.97 It appears that Hayat
al-Sindi represented a trend among a small group of seventeenth
and early-eighteenth century 'ulamd* who relied on the methodology
of ashdb al-hadith in their attempt to reform dominant modes of
madhhabism and taqlid. Not surprisingly, the modern-day Ahl-i Hadith
of South Asia pay great respect to the memory of Hayat al-Sindi
and republish his works.98
95 Ibn Khallikan, Wafaydt al-A'ydn, 1:93.

96 On al-Sha'rani and his Sufi-Salafi outlook, see Michael Winter, Society
and Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt: Studies in the Writings of Abd al- Wahhdb al-
Shdrani (New Brunswick, N.T.: Transaction Books, 1982).
97 Al-LaknawT, al-Fawa'id al-Bakiyya, 8-9; al-Muhibbl, Khuldsat al-Athar, 3:185-
6; Muhammad b. cAlT al-Shawkanl, al-Badr al-TdW bi-Mahdsin man Ba'd al-
Qarn al-SaM (Cairo: Matbacat al-Sacada, 1348 A.H.), 1:445; Nafi, "Tasawwuf
and Reform," 326.
98 See, for example, the Indian edition of Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi's
treatises, Tuhfat al-AndmfT al-Amal hi- Hadith al-Nabi calayh al-Saldt wa'l-Saldm,
and al-Iqdfcald Sabab al-Ikhtilaf, published by Maktaba Salafiyya Muhammadi
of Jamic Masjid Ahl al-Hadlth of New Delhi (n. d.). On the Ahl-i Hadith, see
Barbara Daly Metcalf, Islamic Revival in British India: Deoband, 1860-1900
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), 264-96; Daniel Brown,
Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University
A TEACHER OF IBN (ABD AL-WAHHAB 239
Conclusions
It is difficult at this stage of our research to determine whether

Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl's approach was the outcome of a sudden
revival of hadith studies and the Salafi school of thought in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, or whether haditk-based
jurisprudence had never really disappeared and continued to exist,
in one form or another, after the institutionalization of the schools
of law. The eighteenth-century akhbdn-usuli dispute among the Shici
Twelver jurists reflects a similar tension between rationalist and
text-based jurisprudence. Although the issues involved in the Shici
division are not exactly identical to the Sunni situation, this tension
seems to have existed in Shici juridical traditions since the fifth/
eleventh century, when Twelver jurisprudence took shape."
By using Salafi themes and committing himself to the methodology
of ashdb al-hadith, Hayat al-Sindl was able to formulate a critique of
madhhabi divisions and taqlid. Clearly, Hayat al-Sindl was influenced
by Ibn Taymiyya and his disciples. Yet, Hayat al-Sindi's approach
to Ibn Taymiyya and Ibn al-Qayyim was largely selective. Because
Press, 1996), 27-32; Claudia Preckel, "The Roots of Anglo-Muslim Co-operation

and Islamic Reformism in Bhopal," in Jamal Malik (ed.), Perspectives of Mutual
Encounters in South Asian History, 1760-1860 (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 65-78; idem,
"Islamische Reform im Indien des 19. Jahrbunderts. Aufstieg und Fall von
Muhammad Siddiq Hasan Han, JVawwab von Bhopal," in Roman Loimeier
(ed.), Die Islamische Welt als Netzwerk: Moglichkeiten und Grenzen des Netzwerkansatzes
im Islamischen Kontext (Wiirzburg: Ergon, 2000), 239-56; Riexinger, Sana'ullah
Amritsari, esp. 142-53.
99 On the usuli-akhban dispute in the eighteenth century, see Etan Kohlberg,
"Aspects of Akhbarl Thought in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,"
in Nehemia Levtzion and John O. Voll (ed.), Eighteenth Century Renewal and
Reform in Islam (Syracuse: State University of New York Press, 1987), 133-61;
Andrew J. Newman, "The Nature of the akhbarl/ usuli Debate in Late Safawid
Iran,' BOAS, 55 (1992), 22-51, 250-61; DevinJ. Stewart, Islamic Legal Orthodoxy:
Twelver SHite Responses to the Sunni Legal System (Salt Lake City: University of
Utah Press, 1988), 175ff.; Robert Gleave, Inevitable Doubt: Two Theories of Shi1 1
Jurisprudence (Leiden: Brill, 2000); Juan R. Cole, Sacred Space and Holy War
(London: Tauris, 2002), 66-74. For a brief discussion of the fundamental
issues of disagreement between the usulis and the akhbdns, see Muhammad
Bahr al-(Ulum, al-Ijtihdd Usuluh wa Ahkdmuh (Beirut: Dar al-Zahra, 1977),
176-7. On the history of Shi'i Twelver jurisprudence and the persistence of
tension between rationalist and akhbdr-based jurisprudence, see Abd al-Hadl
al-Fadll, Tdrikh al-Tashrf al-Isldmi (London: The International University of
Islamic Sciences, 1992).
240 BASHEER M. NAFI
the number of his extant works is limited, it is not possible to make

a definitive judgment about the measure of Ibn Taymiyya's theological
influence on Hayat al-Sindl. The emphasis placed by Ibn Taymiyya
and Ibn al-Qayyim on the primacy of the Qur'an and Sunna, their
attempt to minimize the significance of madhhabT differences, and
their call for ijtihdd, were all important elements in Hayat al-Sindi
views. However, because of its negative implications for his hadith-
based jurisprudence, Hayat al-Sindl overlooked Ibn Taymiyya and
Ibn al-Qayyim's incorporation of qiyds.
Similarly, Hayat al-Sindi should not be regarded as an exact
incarnation of the classical ahl al-hadith. First, it is safe to assume
that it was no longer possible for Hayat al-Sindi and other hadith-
oriented scholars of his time to memorize as many hadith (with
their now much longer chains of authority) as did the classical ashdb
al-hadith. Since respect for the written word had increased, Hayat
al-Sindl and his fellow hadith-oriented 'ulamd* relied on manuscripts
of hadith collections, especially with reference to the chains of authority.
Second, whereas the classical ashdb al-hadith developed their tradi-
tionist-jurisprudence before the institutionalization of the madhhabs,
one of Hayat al-Sindl's main preoccupations was to confront the
unyielding observance of madhhabT doctrines. However, it is clear
that Hayat al-Sindl's traditionism was mainly expressed in a moderate
fashion and did not entail a denunciation of the schools of law
themselves, or a total rejection of the established concepts of Islamic
legal theory. Hayat al-Sindl, therefore, represented a sort of neo-
follower of ashdb al- hadith, not a typical one, if there had ever been
one.
Hayat al-Sindl's position on hadith and madhhabs would be taken

further by his student Muhammad b. cAbd al-Wahhab. In almost
all of his works, especially his influential Kitdb al-Tawhid, Ibn cAbd
al-Wahhab makes no use of Islamic legal theory or fiqh opinions,
and he forms his views through direct understanding of scripture.
His willingness to judge Muslims on the basis of their acts rather
than their beliefs is reminiscent of the KharijT rather than the Sunni
theological outlook. Ibn fAbd al-Wahhab's ferocious opposition to
tasawwuf is another indication of his relatively "radicalized" attitudes.
Al-Sindl's affiliation to Sufism is in fact in tandem with a long line
of late Salafi-oriented culamd\ beginning with al-Sha'ranl and not
ending with al-Kuranl.100 Many of these 'ulamd3 were now moving
towards re-interpreting the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud, the most
controversial element of tasawwuf, to conform to Islamic orthodoxy,

or rejecting it altogether. Hence, it was not unusual for these 'ulama'
to hold Sufi and Salafi convictions simultaneously.
Meanwhile, other students of Hayat al-Sindl have displayed different
convictions. Although both showed strong reformist attitudes and
Salafi tendencies, al-Saffarlnl was a Sufi and committed Hanball
jurist, while Ibn al-Amlr al-SancanI could not approve of the theo-
logically framed Wahhabi wars against other Muslims. In sum,
however, while no Muslim scholar should ever be seen as a replica
of his teacher (s), it is perhaps impossible to understand the evolution
of the Wahhabi and other modern Salafi currents without under-
standing the contribution of 'ulamd3 such as Muhammad Hayat al-
Sindl.
100 For a further discussion of Sufism and reform in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, see B. Radtke, "Sufism in the 18th Century: An Attempt
at a Provisional Appraisal," Die Welt des Islam, 36:3 (1996), 326-64. Cf. Nafi,
"Tasawwuf 'and Reform," 307-55. The overlapping of Sufi and reformist attitudes
continued well into the nineteenth century. See, for example, B. Radke, J.
O'kane, K. S. Vikor and R. S. O'Fahey, The Exoteric Ahmad Ibn Idris: A Sufi's
Critique of the Madhdhib and the Wahhdbis. Four Arabic Texts with Translation and
Commentary (Leiden: Brill, 2000); Basheer M. Nafi, "Abu al-Thana5 al-AlusT:
An Alim, Ottoman Mufti and Exegete of the Qur'an," International Journal of
Middle Eastern Studies, 44 (2002), 465-94.

A Teacher of Ibn Abd Al-Wahhab

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A Teacher of Ibn 'Abd al-Wahhb: Muammad ayt al-Sind and the Revival of Ab al-

/although Muhammad Hayat al-SindI (d. 1163 /1 750) was

Correspondence: Basheer M. Nafi, 8 Old Croft Close, Kingston Blountt, Oxford-

* Author's note: I am deeply grateful to the anonymous Islamic Law and

ijtihdd, hadith and sources of law. Considering the dominant cultural

2 Ahmad Dallal, "The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought,

5 Amln M. Sacid, Sirat al-Imdm al-Shaykh Muhammad bin cAbd al-Wahhdb

the specific similarities in their respective intellectual enterprises.6

From the Sind to Madina: The Making of a Scholar of Hadlth

Muhammad Hayat b. Ibrahim al-Sindl was from the Sindl tribe of

6 Dallal, "The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought",

of orthodox Islam. During Awrangzeb's reign relations between

9 Muhammad Abd al-Hayy al-Kittanl, Fihras al-Faharis, ed. Ihsan cAbbas

In Madina, Hayat al-Sindl joined the circle of shaykh Muhammad

cUjaymI was a Hanafi 'alim, al-Basrl and Muhammad al-Kuranl

Definition, and Classification of Knowledge", Journal of Islamic Studies, 3:2

bandiyya-Mujaddidiyya. These culamd3 were to different degrees critical

Imam al-Rabbdni Mujaddid al-Alf al-Thdni (Istanbul: Enver Baytan Kitabivi,

(c) like many of his teachers in Madina, Hayat al-Sindl was a

Honor of Mohamed al-Noweihi (Cairo: The American University Press, 1984),

27 A commentary on a Hadith collection by the Shafici scholar, cAbd al-

interest in the hikam (wise insights) of Ibn cAta5-Allah al-Sikandarl,

1240). On him and on the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud, with which he is

33 Ahmad b. Zaynl Dahlan, Khuldsat al-Kaldmfi Baydn Umard" al-Balad al-

1752-1803),37 and Muhammad b. cAlI al-Shawkanl (1760-1834).38

and 2:621-3; al-Zirikh, al-A'lam, 7:70. Although al-Jabarti's biography of al-

Another student of Hayat al-Sindi, and a major figure in early

42 Al-KittanI, Fihras al-Fahdris, 1:513-4.

Wahhab, effectively used at the time by the Wahhabi 'ulamd3 against

HadTth, Madhhabism and Ijtihdd

Muhammad Hayat al-Sindl was the product of Islamic reformist

49 Ibrahim b. Hasan al-Kuranl, "Ithaf al-Dhakl bi-Sharh al-Tuhfa al-

manifesting a deep awareness of the gravity of the issues involved.

to challenge the dominance of this culture from within its own

opinion with textual evidence.54 The (dlim, according to Hayat al-

54 Ibid., 36 and 42.

Hanball scholar, and dedicated student of Ibn Taymiyya, summed

57 Al-Sindl, Tuhfat al-Andm, 47-51.

framework for understanding the historical development of the Islamic

59 On the formation of the four Sunni madhhabs, see Christopher Melchert,

tionalization of the doctrines underpinning this plurality.

narrators),66 which are the bulk oihadxth traditions; problems associated

In other words, the opinions of human beings can be only relatively

66 On dhdd, see Mohammad Hashim Kamali, Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence

Arbdin al-Nawawiyya69 and Fath al-Ghafurfi Wad* al-Aydi'ald al-Sudur,70

69 See note 23.

been aware of the rich, elaborate juridical discourse on the nature

74 Muwaffaq al-Din b. Qudama, al-Mughm, ed. cAbdallah b. cAbd al-Muhsin

I have seen the Prophet - peace be upon him - concluding his

76 Al-Sindl, Fath al-Ghaffur, 23.

The Return ofAshab al-Hadlth

One source of inspiration for Hayat al-Sindlwas the eighth/fourteenth

in Hayat al-Sindl's system of thought, but his reliance on hadith

b. Macln (d. 233/847),84 Aba Bakr b. Abl Shayba (237/852),85 Ishaq

480; Ahmad b. Muhammad b. Khallikan, Wqfaydt al-A'ydn wa-Anbd* Abnd* al-

By the early fourth/tenth century, the power and influence of

95 Ibn Khallikan, Wafaydt al-A'ydn, 1:93.

It is difficult at this stage of our research to determine whether

Press, 1996), 27-32; Claudia Preckel, "The Roots of Anglo-Muslim Co-operation

the number of his extant works is limited, it is not possible to make

Hayat al-Sindl's position on hadith and madhhabs would be taken

controversial element of tasawwuf, to conform to Islamic orthodoxy,

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