Shah Waliyullah Dihlavi

Shah Waliyullah Dihlavi (d. 1762) was a highly renowned and influential scholar of Islam who produced works on the Qur’an, Islamic law and jurisprudence, Sufism, philosophy and politics. He sought to reconcile seemingly competing strands of Muslim intellectual thought and practice, pursuing a cosmopolitan Islam marked not by dogmatism and finality but by debate and hermeneutical flexibility. Yet it is precisely in his attempt to forge such a vision that some of the most profound tensions and ambiguities of his thought were enshrined.

Setting his life and intellectual career in the context of India on the eve of British colonisation, SherAli Tareen explores Shah Waliyullah’s work and his coveted yet contested legacy in South Asia and beyond.