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Faith Deployed for a New Shiʿi Polity in India: The Theology of Sayyid Dildar ‘Ali Nasirabadi1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2014

SAJJAD RIZVI
SAJJAD RIZVI*
Affiliation:
University of Exeter, s.h.rizvi@exeter.ac.uk
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Abstract

While Shiʿi Islam and its imperial expressions were known in the Deccan sultanates from the sixteenth century and expressed in court-sponsored production of theology, it was only in the eighteenth century that Shiʿi political theology emerged in North India in the new state of Awadh. In this paper, I argue that one can discern in the theology of Sayyid Dildar ʿAli Nasirabadi (d. 1820) a clear attempt at forging a new Shiʿi theological dispensation to bolster the state, based upon a tripartite attack on three rival approaches to faith and politics: Akhbarism, Sufism, and the Sunni rationalism of Farangi Mahall. A careful examination of these textual practices within the Awadhi context demonstrates one example of how Indian thinkers responded to the decline of Mughal power and articulated alternative epistemologies in vernacular contexts before the advent of the British Empire.

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Type
Research Article
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Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 24 , Issue 3: Isna ‘Ashari and Isma‘ili Shi‘ism: from South Asia to the Indian Ocean , July 2014 , pp. 363 - 380
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Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2014 

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Footnotes

1

An original version of this paper was presented at a workshop at Royal Holloway, University of London, in September 2011 and I am grateful to Justin Jones for the invitation and discussion. I thank Francis Robinson and Saiyid Nizamuddin Ahmad for their comments on the written version. Another version was presented at the seminar of the South Asia Institute at the University of Texas at Austin in October 2013. I am grateful to Syed Akbar Hyder for the invitation and to Gail Minault, Kamran Ali, Azfar Moin and other participants for their valuable comments and discussion.

References

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5 Rizvi, Shāh Walī-Allāh, p. 183; Ḥazīn-i Lāhījī, Shaykh, Tārīkh va safarnāma, (ed.) Davānī, ʿAlī (Tehran, 1375 Sh/1996), pp. 270–286 (his account was written in Delhi in 1742)Google Scholar; Belfour, F. C., The Life of Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hazin (Bombay, 1911), pp. 82–103 Google Scholar; Bihbahānī, Aḥmad (writing in Patna in 1809), Mirʾāt al-aḥwāl-i jahān-numā: Safarnāma-yi Hind, compiled by Shāʾista Khān (Patna, 1992), pp. 239ffGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of these texts, see Alam, Muzaffar and Subrahmanyam, Sanjay, Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discovery, 1400–1800 (Cambridge, 2007), pp. 229–242 Google Scholar; Jaʿfarīyān, Rasūl, “Murūrī bar Mirʾāt al-aḥvāl-i jahān-numā”, in Maqālāt-i tārīkhī (Qum, 1417/1996), pp. 97–120 Google Scholar; Cole, Juan, “Mirror of the world: Iranian ‘orientalism’ and early 19th century India”, Critique, V (1996), pp. 41–60 Google Scholar and Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas, A Socio-intellectual History of the Isnāʿasharī Shīʿīs in India (Canberra, 1986), vol. II, pp. 121–125 Google Scholar. Another important Iranian traveller who was well received was Shūshtarī, Mīr ʿAbd al-Laṭīf (d. 1805) in his Tuḥfat al-ʿālam, (ed.) Muvaḥḥid, Ṣamad (Tehran, 1984)Google Scholar.

6 Rizvi, Shāh Walī-Allāh, pp. 190–195.

7 A good, though uncritical, account of the state's promotion of Shiʿi culture is Kāẓimī, Farūgh, Shāhān-i Avadh aur shīʿīyat (Lucknow, 1999)Google Scholar.

8 Lakhnavī, Āghā Mahdī, Savāniḥ-i ḥayāt-i ḥażrat-i Ghufrān-maʾāb (Karachi, 1982), especially 15–43 Google Scholar; Kashmīrī, Mīrzā Muḥammad ʿAlī, Nujūm al-samāʾ fī tarājim al-ʿulamāʾ, (ed.) Muḥaddith, Mīr Hāshim (Tehran, 1382 Sh/2003), pp. 370–374 Google Scholar; al-ʿUlamāʾ, Sayyid, Janāb-i Ghufrān-maʾāb (Lucknow, 1958)Google Scholar; al-Jazāʾirī, Sayyid Muḥammad ʿAbbās Shūshtarī, Awrāq al-dhahab, ed. al-Ṭurayḥī, Muḥammad Saʿīd (Beirut, 2007), pp. 319–339 Google Scholar; Nawgānvī, Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn, Taẕkira-yi Bē bahā tārīkh al-ʿulamāʾ (New Delhi, 2010), pp. 154–160 Google Scholar; Rizvi, Shīʿīs in India, vol. II, pp. 128–138; Cole, Juan, Roots of North Indian Shi’ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh 1722–1859 (Berkeley, 1988), pp. 61–66 Google Scholar; Hindī, Sayyid Aḥmad, Warathat al-anbiyāʾ (Lucknow, 1918), p. 3 Google Scholar; ʿAlī, Raḥmān, Taẕkira-yi ʿulamāʾ-yi Hind (Lucknow, 1914), pp. 60–61 Google Scholar; al-Lakhnawī, Sayyid ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Ḥasanī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir wa-bahjat al-masāmiʿ wa-l-manāẓir (Beirut, 1999), pp. 966–967 Google Scholar; al-Kāẓimī, Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī, Aḥsan al-wadīʿa fī tarājim ashhar mashāhīr mujtahidī al-shīʿa (Baghdad, 1929), pp. 4–11 Google Scholar; Ḥusayn, Sayyid Murtażā, Maṭlaʿ-yi anvār (Karachi, 1982), pp. 220–227 Google Scholar; Kākorvī, Masʿūd al-Anvār ʿAlavī, Awadh kē chand ʿarabī ʿulamāʾ (Lucknow, 2000), pp. 73–108 Google Scholar; Ḥusayn, Mīrzā Jaʿfar, Qadīm lakhnaw kī ākhirī bahār (New Delhi, 1981), pp. 229–232 Google Scholar; Kākorvī, Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿAẓmat, Tavārīkh-i mulk-i Awadh musammā bih Muraqqaʿ-yi Khusravī (Lucknow, 1986), pp. 422–423 Google Scholar. Important contemporary primary sources include the anonymous Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā (MS Nāṣiriyya, rijāl shīʿa 1) written by a student of Dildār ʿAlī, Tadhkirat al-ʿulamāʾ of Sayyid Mahdī bin Najaf ʿAlī, Shudhūr al-ʿiqyān fī tarājim al-aʿyān (MS National Library Kolkata, Buhar Collection 278) of Sayyid Iʿjāz Ḥusayn Kintūri, al-Maqāmiʿ al-ḥaydarīya [gloss on Āʾīna-yi ḥaqqnumā] of Sayyid ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Ḥusaynī (MS British Library, Delhi Persian 1190, fol. 188v–284r), and al-Ḥisn al-matīn fī aḥwāl al-wuzarāʾ wa-l-salāṭīn of Sayyid ʿAbbās Ardistānī (MS National Archives of India, Arabic 235 and 236). I am grateful to James Onley for procuring a copy of the last one for me.

9 On Sayyid Ghulām Ḥusayn, see al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 1053; on Mullā Ḥaydar ʿAlī, see Khayrābādī, Fażl-i Imām, ʿAmad-nāma, ed. Shahābī, Intiẓāmullāh (Karachi, 1956), pp. 2–3 Google Scholar, al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 960, and Raḥmān ʿAlī, Taẕkira-yi ʿulamāʾ-yi Hind, pp. 54–55; on Mullā Bābullāh, see Khayrābādī, ʿAmad-nāma, p. 8. The latter two had been students of Mullā Ḥamdullāh.

10 On Tafażżul Ḥusayn Khān, see al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 940; Rizvi, Shīʿīs in India, vol. II, pp. 227–230. ʿAbd ʿAlī, having spent fifteen years with Ḥāfiẓ Raḥmat Khān, fled and found another Rohilla patron in Rampur. See ʿAlī, Raḥmān, Tazkira-yi ʿulamāʾ-yi Hind (Lucknow, 1914), pp. 122–123 Google Scholar; al-Lakhnawī, Nuhzat al-khawāṭir, pp. 1021–1023; Farangī-Maḥallī, Mullā Valīullāh, al-Aghṣān al-arbaʿa li-l-shajara al-ṭayyība(Lucknow, 1881), pp. 121–126 Google Scholar; Anṣārī, Muftī Rażā, Bānī-yi dars-i niẓāmī (Lucknow, 1973), pp. 103–125 Google Scholar; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, p. 73; Hamilton, Charles, An Historical Relation of the Origin, Progress, and Final Dissolution of the Government of the Rohilla Afghans in the Northern Provinces of Hindostan (London, 1787), pp. 220–237 Google Scholar; Fayżbakhsh, Muḥammad, Farraḥbakhsh , tr. Hoey, William, Memoirs of Delhi and Faizabad, being a translation of the “Tārīkh Farrahbakhsh” of Muhammad Faiz-Bakhsh from the original Persian (Allahabad, 1888), vol. II, pp. 3–12 Google Scholar; Cole, Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 48–49; Barnett, North India between Empires, pp. 92–93; Āfrīdī, Dawr, Tārīkh-i rūhilkhand (Delhi, 1986), pp. 57–77 on the conflict between Shujāʿ al-Dawla and Ḥāfiẓ Raḥmat Khān and his consequent deathGoogle Scholar; cf. Rāmpūrī, Muḥammad Najm al-Ghanī Khān, Tārīkh-i Awadh (Lucknow, 1976), pp. 314–331 Google Scholar; Kākorvī, Tavārīkh-i mulk-i Awadh musammā bih Muraqqaʿ-yi Khusravī, p. 68; Niẓāmī, Muṣṭafā Ḥusayn, Tārīkh-i Rūhilkhand 1707 tā 1775: Gul-i raḥmat ka taqābulī jāʾiza (Lucknow, 1986), pp. 105–111 Google Scholar.

11 Iṣfahānī, Abū Ṭālib, Tafżīḥ al-ghāfilīn [History of Asafu’d Daulah Nawab Wazir of Oudh], tr. Hoey, William, (Allahabad, 1885), p. 3 Google Scholar; Fisher, A Clash of Cultures, pp. 66–67; Qureshi, Hamid A., The Mughals, The English, and the Rulers of Awadh from 1722 to 1856 (Lucknow, 2003), pp. 83, 124–128Google Scholar.

12 Anon., Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā, fol. 47; Kintūrī, Shudhūr al-ʿiqyān, vol. I, fol. 136r; Ardistānī, al-Ḥisn al-matīn, vol. I, pp. 91–92.

13 Anon., Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā, fols. 51v–56v.

14 Fisher, A Clash of Cultures, p. 77; Qureshi, The Rulers of Awadh, p. 253.

15 Fisher, A Clash of Cultures, pp. 136–138.

16 Anon., Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā, fols. 65–67; Cole, The Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 179–180.

17 Cf. al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 1101; Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Sayyid Ghulām ʿAlī, Tārīkh-i ʿImād al-saʿādāt (Lucknow, 1864), p. 137 Google Scholar.

18 Anon., Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā, fol. 67v; Rizvi, Shīʿīs in India, vol. II, p. 131; Cole, The Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, p. 129.

19 Cole, Juan, Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shiʿite Islam (London, 2002), pp. 79–82 Google Scholar; Litvak, Meir, “The finances of the ʿulamāʾ communities of Najaf and Karbala, 1796–1904’, Die Welt des Islams, XL,1 (1999), pp. 46–49 Google Scholar.

20 Rizvi, Shīʿīs in India, vol. II, pp. 139–146; Jaʿfar Ḥusayn, Qadīm lakhnaw, pp. 231–236.

21 On the Madrasa-yi Sulṭānīya, see Chawdhurī, Fāżil Nabīl, “Sulṭānīya”, Khāndān-i Ijtihād (Lucknow) X (October 2008), pp. 8–28 Google Scholar. Shūshtarī's Awrāq al-dhahab (cited above in n. 6) is primarily a biography of Sulṭān al-ʿulamāʾ; cf. al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, pp. 1082–83; al-Kāẓimī, Aḥsan al-wadīʿa, pp. 52–56. On Sayyid Ḥusayn, see al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 954; al-Kāẓimī, Aḥsan al-wadīʿa, pp. 56–58.

22 Cole, The Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 186–187. On Sayyid Ḥasan, see al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 950, and on Sayyid ʿAlī, Ibid., p. 940.

23 ʿAlī Fāżil, “Hiba-nāma va vaṣīyat-nāma-yi Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī”, Kitāb-i Shīʿa I, 2 (1389 Sh/2010), pp. 153–154.

24 Umar, Urban Culture in Northern India, pp. 7–9.

25 Cole, Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 92–119; Mohan, Surendra, Awadh under the Nawabs: Politics, Culture, and Communal Relations 1722–1856 (New Delhi, 1997), pp. 79–89 Google Scholar.

26 Umar, Urban Culture in Northern India, pp. 66–71; Sadiq, Muhammad, A History of Urdu Literature (London, 1964), pp. 117–144 Google Scholar.

27 Āzād, Āb-e ḥayāt, pp. 419–428; Sadiq, Urdu Literature, pp. 145–163; Hyder, Syed Akbar, Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory (New York, 2006), pp. 30–40 Google Scholar; Zaidī, ʿAlī Jawād, A History of Urdu Literature (New Delhi, 1993), pp. 159–169 Google Scholar; idem, Mir Anis (New Delhi, 1986); Naqvī, Hilāl, Bīsvīñ ṣadī awr jadīd marsiya (London/Karachi, 1994), pp. 33–90 Google Scholar.

28 Lakhnawī, Sayyid Bāqir Shams, Hindustān mēn shīʿat kī tārīkh aur Shīʿī ʿaqāʾid kī tafṣīl (Lucknow, n.d.), pp. 14–23 Google Scholar; Umar, Islam in Northern India, pp. 195–197.

29 ʿAlī, Sayyid Dildār, Asās al-uṣūl (Lucknow, 1848), pp. 2–3 Google Scholar.

30 McDermott, Martin, The Theology of al-Shaikh al-Mufīd (Beirut, 1978), pp. 57–69 Google Scholar.

31 Astarābādī, Muḥammad Amīn, al-Fawāʾid al-madanīya [wa-bi-dhaylihi al-Shawāhid al-Makkīya li-Nūr al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī] (Qum, 2005)Google Scholar.

32 Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī, Asās al-uṣūl, pp. 4–6.

33 Ibid., pp. 154–162.

34 Bihārī, Muḥibbullāh, Musallam al-thubūt (Cairo, 1904), pp. 25ffGoogle Scholar.

35 Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī, Asās al-uṣūl, pp. 162–190.

36 Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī, al-Shihāb al-thāqib (MS British Library, Delhi Arabic 909), fol. 2v–3r.

37 Ibid., fol. 3v–4v.

38 Jaʿfarīyān, Rasūl, Siyāsat va farhang-i rūzgār-i ṣafavī (Tehran, 1388 Sh/2009), pp. 678–680, 797–805Google Scholar. For Qummī's texts, I have consulted the following manuscripts: al-Fawāʾid al-dīnīya (MS Tehran Majlis-i Shūrā 3479), and Ḥikmat al-ʿārifīn (MS Tehran Majlis-i Shūrā 4013).

39 On the music and dancing theme, see Jaʿfarīyān, Siyāsat va farhang-i rūzgār-i ṣafavī, pp. 931–955.

40 For an excellent study of Sufism and anti-Sufism in the Safavid period that provides the background for these Indian discussions, see Ata Anzali, Safavid Shiʿism, the Eclipse of Sufism, and the Emergence of ʿIrfān (unpublished PhD dissertation, Rice University, 2012).

41 Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas, A History of Sufism in India (Delhi, 1992)Google Scholar, vol. II, pp. 36ff; Vassie, Roderic, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Chishtī and the Bhagavadgita”, in The Heritage of Sufism II, (ed.) Lewisohn, L. (Oxford, 1999), pp. 367–378 Google Scholar; Chittick, William, “Notes on Ibn ʿArabī's influence in the subcontinent”, Muslim World, LXXXII (1992), pp. 218–241 Google Scholar; Lipton, G.A., Muḥibb Allāh Ilāhābādī's The Equivalence between Giving and Receiving: Avicennan Neoplatonism and the School of Ibn ʿArabī in South Asia (unpublished MA dissertation, University of North Carolina, 2007)Google Scholar.

42 Al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, pp. 1042–43; al-Ghanī, Muḥammad Najm, Tārīkh-i Awadh (Lucknow, 1919), vol. III, pp. 132–133 Google Scholar; cf. Umar, Islam in Northern India, p. 196.

43 Rizvi, Shāh Walī-Allāh, pp. 256–277.

44 Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī, Risāla-yi khayrātīya dar ibṭāl-i ṭarīqa-yi ṣūfīya, (ed.) Mahdī Rajāʾī (Qum, 1371 Sh/1992).

45 ʿAlī, Sayyid Dildār, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl fī ʿilm al-uṣūl, (ed.) Ḥasan, Sayyid Āqā (Lucknow, 1902), vol. I, pp. 1–3 Google Scholar.

46 Ibid., p. 9.

47 Ibid., pp. 16–36.

48 Ibid., pp. 26–27.

49 Ibid., pp. 90–98.

50 Ibid., pp. 177–179.

51 Ibid., pp. 110–150, 223–264.

52 ʿAlī, Sayyid Dildār, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, vol. II (MS British Library, Delhi Arabic 920)Google Scholar, fol. 67r–121r.

53 ʿAlī, Sayyid Dildār, Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, vol. V (MS British Library, Delhi Arabic 923)Google Scholar, fol. 21r onwards.

54 Ibid., fol. 200r–396r.

55 Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: Puritanism, Sectarian Polemics and Jihād (Canberra, 1982), pp. 260–355 Google Scholar.

56 al-ʿAzīz, Shāh ʿAbd, Tūhfa-yi isnāʿasharīya (rpt., Istanbul, 1994), pp. 3–4 Google Scholar. Cf. Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, p. 256; Umar, Islam in Northern India, pp. 215–216.

57 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 5–62; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 261–269. For a famous Shiʿi polemic claiming Ibn Sabāʾ was merely a legendary figure, see Murtaḍā, Sayyid, ʿAbdullāh bin Sabāʾ (Najaf, 1956)Google Scholar; for a recent scholarly assessment, debunking the black myth but arguing for the historicity of the figure, see Anthony, Sean, The Caliph and the Heretic: Ibn Sabāʾ and the Origins of Shiʿism (Leiden, 2011)Google Scholar.

58 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tūhfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 62–199; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 269–280.

59 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 199–231; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 280–282.

60 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 231–276; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 282–286.

61 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 276–314; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 286–290.

62 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfyi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 314–348; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 290–293.

63 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 348–473; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 293–304.

64 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 473–493; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, p. 304.

65 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 493–529; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 304–305.

66 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 529–699; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 305–337.

67 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 699–779; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 337–352.

68 Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 779–810; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 352–355.

69 Ibid., pp. 356–470. The most extensive refutation of the Tuḥfa was Nuzhat-i isnāʿasharīya by Ḥakīm Mīrzā Muḥammad Kāmil Kashmīrī (d. 1235/1819–1820), known as the Fourth Martyr (shahīd-i rābiʿ) – see Kashmīrī, Mīrzā Muḥammad Mahdī, Takmila-yi Nujūm al-samāʾ (Qum, 1978), vol. II, p. 422 Google Scholar; Rizvi, Saiyid Athar Abbas, A Socio-intellectual History of the Isnāʿasharī Shīʿīs in India (Canberra, 1986), vol. II, pp. 96–97 Google Scholar.

70 ʿAlī, Sayyid Dildār, Ṣawārim-i ilāhīyāt (Calcutta, 1218/1804), pp. 180–187 Google Scholar; cf. Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 388–389.

71 Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī, Ṣawārim-i ilāhīyāt, pp. 237–241; idem, Ḥusām al-Islām (Calcutta, 1218/1804), p. 405; cf. Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, p. 391.

72 Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī, Ṣawārim-i ilāhīyāt, p. 97; idem, Ḥusām al-islām, pp. 11–14.

73 Cole, The Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 204–209.

74 Ibid., pp. 163–165; cf. al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 1085. Akhbārī's work is called Maʿāwil al-ʿuqūl li-qilaʿ Asās al-uṣūl [Intellectual arguments to destroy the foundations of jurisprudence] and mentioned in the famous bio-bibliography of Shiʿi texts, al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-shīʿa of Āqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī (Volume 2, no.7). Some of Dildār ʿAlī's students responded with works such as Muṭāriq al-ḥaqq wa-l-yaqīn li-kasr muʿāwil al-shayāṭīn [Pathways of truth and certainty destroying the satanic arguments].

75 Anon., al-Radd al-qaṣī ʿalā Dildār ʿAlī, (MS British Library, Delhi Arabic 967), fol. 294v–298r. Further examination of this text alongside the Akhbārī text of Maʿāwil al-ʿuqul may prove them to be the same.

76 Ibid., fol. 298v–307v.

77 ʿAlī Akbar b. Mīrzā Asad al-Dīn Sirāj al-Ḥaqq Mawdūdī, al-Fawāʾid al-Mawdūdīya, MS British Library Delhi Persian 953, fol. 92v–131v.

78 Anon., Radd-i Shihāb-i thāqib, MS British Library Delhi Persian 1190, fol. 171v–172r.

79 Ibid., fol. 180r–184r.

80 Ibid., fol. 174v–178r.

81 Ibid., fol. 187v.

82 This text, of which only the initial volume appeared, was originally lithographed and published by the Nāṣirī Press in Jaunpur in 1913. A new typeset edition is being prepared by Mahdī Khāja-pīrī and will be published by the Iran Cultural Centre in New Delhi with an introduction by Akbar Subūt. On Nawnehravī, see Nawgānvī, Taẕkira-yi Bē bahā, p. 381.