Walī Allāh, Shāh

born 1702/03, Delhi

died 1762, Delhi

Indian Islamic theologian.

He received a traditional Islamic education, and after a pilgrimage to Mecca in 1732 he remained in the Hejaz to study theology. Living in a time of disillusionment following the death of Aurangzeb, he believed that Muslim polity could be restored only through religious reform that would harmonize Islam with India's changing social and economic conditions. He was steadfastly monotheistic but otherwise much more liberal than most Islamic theologians that had preceded him. His best-known work is The Secrets of Belief. His synthesis of theology, philosophy, and mysticism so reinvigorated Islam that it became prevalent among Islamic scholars in India until the 20th century.

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▪ Indian Muslim theologian

Allāh also spelled  Ullāh  

born 1702/03, Delhi [India]

died 1762, Delhi

      Indian theologian and founder of modern Islamic (Islāmic world) thought who first attempted to reassess Islamic theology in the light of modern changes.

      Walī Allāh received a traditional Islamic education from his father and is said to have memorized the Qurʾān at the age of seven. In 1732 he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and he then remained in the Hejaz (now in Saudi Arabia) to study religion with eminent theologians. He reached adulthood at a time of disillusionment following the death in 1707 of Aurangzeb, the last Mughal emperor of India. Because large areas of the empire had been lost to Hindu and Sikh rulers of the Deccan and the Punjab, Indian Muslims had to accept the rule of non-Muslims. This challenge occupied Walī Allāh's adult life.

      Walī Allāh believed that the Muslim polity could be restored to its former splendour by a policy of religious reform that would harmonize the religious ideals of Islam with the changing social and economic conditions of India. According to him, religious ideas were universal and eternal, but their application could meet different circumstances. The main tool of his policy was the doctrine of tatbīq, whereby the principles of Islam were reconstructed and reapplied in accordance with the Qurʾān and the Ḥadīth (the spoken traditions attributed to Muhammad). He thereby allowed the practice of ijtihād (independent thinking by theologians in matters relating to Islamic law), which hitherto had been curtailed. As a corollary, he reinterpreted the concept of taqdīr (determinism) and condemned its popularization, qismat (narrow fatalism, or absolute predetermination). Walī Allāh held that man could achieve his full potential by his own exertion in a universe that was determined by God. Theologically, he opposed the veneration of saints or anything that compromised strict monotheism. He was jurisprudentially eclectic, holding that a Muslim could follow any of the four schools of Islamic law on any point of dogma or ritual.

      The best known of Walī Allāh's voluminous writings was Asrār ad-dīn (“The Secrets of Belief”). His annotated Persian translation of the Qurʾān is still popular in India and Pakistan.

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