Shah Waliullah

Shah Waliullah of Delhi was an Indian Muslim scholar, jurist and reformer who studied in Mecca and Medina before returning to teach in Delhi. In his major work, The Conclusive Argument from God, he explained the purposes behind the rulings of Islamic law in social and historical terms, tracing how human communities develop through stages of social organisation. He also translated the Qur'an into Persian, then the learned language of Muslim India, and sought to reconcile the legal schools.

Key ideas

• The rulings of revealed law serve purposes that reason can discover.
• Human society develops through successive stages of organisation (irtifāqāt), and law answers to them.
• Direct study of the Qur'an and hadith should be made widely accessible.
• Differences between the legal schools can be reduced by returning to their sources.

Major works

• Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bāligha (The Conclusive Argument from God)
• al-Fawz al-Kabīr fī Uṣūl al-Tafsīr
• Fatḥ al-Raḥmān (Persian translation of the Qur'an)

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