Renewing Muslim Knowledge Traditions: The Sufi Path of Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi (1703-1762)

In this dissertation, I will explain the essential influence of the Indian Sufi scholar, Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi (d. 1762) on the trajectory of the Indian Islamic tradition, and simultaneously, show how central his Sufi tradition was to a broader Islamic tradition in the Arabia peninsula, while being grounded in the very particular Indian indigenous setting. As Wali Allah has typically been read as a reformer with an eye towards modernity, this dissertation largely ignores the reception of Wali Allah by other later important Indian scholars to show the worldview of Sufi scholars in India, their practical daily interactions, and the intellectual contributions they made to a wider conversation about the connection of God to the world. In doing so, Wali Allah systematized several different traditions, from that of the Islamic philosophers to the Sufi tradition, the disciplines of Prophetic reports, and Islamic legal theory. His wide-ranging exploration of the disciplines of the Islamic sciences are lauded until today by very different scholars, some modernist, some traditionalists, and they emphasize very different aspects of his work depending on which Wali Allah they find in the early modern sources. Thus, he is a critic of Sufi practice for some, a jurisprudential theorist for others, but all South Asian Muslims agree that he is the epitome of the South Asian Islamic tradition. However, the overall emphasis on Islamic legalism as the core or essence of Islamic thought by Western scholars and traditional scholars alike has diverted attention from what may seem obvious after reading this dissertation: Sufism was the center of Wali Allah’s world, and this was largely due to an affective interest in interacting with God and the metaphysical realities whereby one could get to know God as Reality. Through the figure of the Prophet Muhammad, Sufis like Wali Allah were able to connect to the Unseen Realm and come to know God. All worldly disciplinary knowledge was secondary to this ultimate goal. Sufis did participate in disciplines like history, law, and exegesis that had their own rules, but this time period is uniquely interesting for the self-possessed way Sufis like Wali Allah waded into contemporary intellectual debates in a wide range of disciplines that are seen as beyond the purview of Sufism. The “irrationality” of these ideas has been ignored by modern scholars due to a series of anachronistic readings and political projects that have used Wali Allah’s thought in ever more materialist scholarly settings. Frankly, the Sufi mentality that animates his interests became too embarrassing to engage. This dissertation attempts to give credence to the social and scholarly Sufism that produced intellectual works in the eighteenth century, and did so without being interested in European scholarly innovations at the same time. It was not only that Sufis had their own worldview that they were interested in expounding, they also did not need to respond to Europeans because they were not intellectually challenged by European ideas as of yet. These circumstances would quickly change in 1803 after the British took over Delhi, the symbolic center of many layers of meaning for South Asians living in Hindustan, from sovereignty of the Mughal emperors, to the layers of sacred geographies that ensconced the subcontinent in divine grace accessed by holy men for efficacious worldly spiritual benefits.本论文将阐释印度苏菲派学者沙阿·瓦利·安拉·迪赫拉维（Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi，卒于1762年）对印度伊斯兰传统发展轨迹的核心影响，同时阐明其苏菲传统如何在极具特色的印度本土语境下，成为阿拉伯半岛更广域伊斯兰传统的核心组成部分。 由于学界通常将瓦利·安拉解读为一位着眼于现代性的改革者，本论文并未沿袭这一主流视角，而是刻意回避后世其他重要印度学者对瓦利·安拉的接受史研究，转而旨在展现印度苏菲派学者的世界观、他们的日常实践互动，以及他们在围绕“神与世界之关联”展开的更广域学术对话中所做出的智识贡献。 在此过程中，瓦利·安拉将诸多不同传统加以系统化整合，涵盖伊斯兰哲学传统、苏菲传统、先知传述文献（Prophetic reports）学科以及伊斯兰法学理论。他对伊斯兰科学诸领域的广泛探索，至今仍受到不同阵营学者的推崇——既有现代主义者，亦有传统主义者，而这些学者依据其在早期现代文献中所发现的瓦利·安拉形象，各自强调其著作中截然不同的面向。 因此，在部分学者眼中他是苏菲实践的批判者，在另一部分学者眼中他则是法理学理论家，但所有南亚穆斯林都一致认为，他是南亚伊斯兰传统的典范。 然而，西方学者与传统学者皆将伊斯兰法学主义视为伊斯兰思想的核心或本质，这一整体倾向遮蔽了阅读本论文后显而易见的真相：苏菲主义是瓦利·安拉思想世界的核心，而这一核心地位很大程度上源于他在与神互动以及形而实在层面的情感性关切——借此，人们得以将神作为终极实在加以认知。 借助先知穆罕默德的形象，像瓦利·安拉这样的苏菲派学者得以连通幽玄之域（Unseen Realm）并领悟真主。所有世俗学科知识，相较于这一终极目标而言都居于次要地位。 苏菲派学者确实会参与历史、法学、经注学等自有其规则的学科研究，但这一历史时期格外引人关注，原因在于像瓦利·安拉这样的苏菲派学者以自主的方式深度介入了诸多被视为超出苏菲主义研究范畴的广泛学科的当代智识辩论。 由于一系列时代错置式解读与政治议程——这些议程将瓦利·安拉的思想置于愈发唯物主义的学术语境中加以运用，现代学者往往忽略了其思想中所谓的“非理性”面向。坦率而言，驱动瓦利·安拉学术兴趣的苏菲派思维模式，已然令学界羞于深入探讨。 本论文旨在为18世纪产生智识著作的社会与学术性苏菲主义正名，且当时的苏菲派学者并未对欧洲学术创新抱有兴趣。不仅如此，苏菲派拥有自身致力于阐释的世界观，他们亦无需回应欧洲思想，因为彼时欧洲的思想尚未对他们构成智识上的挑战。 这一状况在1803年迅速改变——当年英国从莫卧儿皇帝手中接管了德里。德里作为印度斯坦地区南亚民众诸多意义层叠的象征中心，从莫卧儿皇权的象征，到这片次大陆被神圣恩典所环绕的神圣地理层积（圣徒借此获得世俗层面的灵性效验），都赋予了德里独特的精神与世俗意义。