History, Science and Faith in Islam
94. Resistance and Reform - Shah Waliullah of Delhi- Part 2
By Prof Dr Nazeer Ahmed
Concord, CA
Shah Waliullah was the first in the subcontinent to translate the Qur’an into the Persian language that was widely spoken among the learned circles in India at that time. It was his initiative, and his example, that later inspired translations of the Qur’an into Urdu and other Indian languages.
His sons were the first to translate the Qur’an into Urdu. He trained a large number of scholars and teachers whose influence in northern India and Pakistan was felt throughout the 19th century. His son Shah Abdul Aziz was a principal figure in the religious life of Delhi in the waning years of the Moghul Empire. His grandson Shah Ismail Shahid fought for a just political order in the Punjab. His followers Sayyid Ahmed and Shah Ismail founded an Islamic movement in northwest India in the first half of the 19th century. In modern times, his influence inspired the voluminous works of Maulana Maudoodi of India and Pakistan, and the Jamaat e Islami movement.
It was in the political military sphere that Shah Waliullah’s presence was immediately felt. Comparing kingship to pre-Islamic governments, the Shah called for the re-establishment of the Caliphate after the example of Khulfa e Rashidoon. He was a prime mover in the political military events of the age.
The India of Shah Waliullah was in an advanced stage of social and political disintegration. There was chaos in the court of Delhi. After Nadir Shah ransacked Delhi (1739) and withdrew, the Moghul Emperor Mohammed Shah tried to hold the empire together. Muhammed Shah died in 1748, and his son Ahmed Shah (1748-1754) became the Emperor. Ahmed Shah appointed Safdar Jung as his grand vizier, but Safdar was more interested in settling scores with his personal enemies than in the administration of the state. The Emperor then favored Ghaziuddin, a grandson of Nizam ul Mulk, the Subedar of Deccan. Safdar Jung rebelled. Ghaziuddin forged an alliance with the Marathas in Poona, and marched north to Delhi with a contingent of 20,000 Maratha cavalry. Safdar Jung was defeated, but now real power in Delhi had passed on to the Marathas. When Ahmed Shah died in 1754, Alamgir II ascended the throne. He was a mere puppet in the hands of the Marathas who continued their relentless advance in the Punjab. With central Punjab under their control, the Marathas became the dominant power in the subcontinent, except for the territories controlled by the British and the armed state of Mysore under Hyder Ali and his son Tippu. Ghaziuddin himself killed Alamgir II in 1759, and the disintegration of the Empire accelerated.
It is against this background of chaos that one has to look at the life and work of Shah Waliullah of Delhi. In 1758, the Maratha armies occupied Lahore and evicted Timur, son of Ahmed Shah Abdali of Kabul. The Punjab is where the vast Islamic world meets up with the subcontinental Hindu culture. At this juncture, Shah Waliullah of Delhi wrote to Ahmed Shah Abdali, inviting him to enter Punjab and stop the Marathas. Three years later, in 1761, Ahmed Shah crossed the Indus and took Lahore. A large Maratha army advanced from Delhi and met him on the plains of Panipat. The decisive battle, commonly known as the Third Battle of Panipat, was fought on June 14, 1761. In the desperate clash of arms, over 150,000 Indian soldiers perished, and the Afghans were victorious.
This event has elicited controversy among Indian historians as to the “foreign” orientation of Shah Waliullah. The controversy has been accentuated by the current India-Pakistan dialectic. Those who support the Pakistani position praise the Shah for stopping the Marathas east of Lahore. In India, on the other hand, the Shah is taken to task for inviting a “foreign invader” to Indian soil. Some have gone so far as to portray the Third Battle of Panipat as a Hindu-Muslim clash. None of these positions is supported by historical facts. First, in the context of the times, Lahore and Kabul were not “foreign territories”. They were part of Moghul territories that had been taken by Nadir Shah as late as 1738. The factions headed by the Afghans, Pathans, Moghuls, Rajputs and Marathas were all “internal” to Hindustan. Secondly, it is incorrect to portray the Maratha armies as “Hindu”. Of the five Maratha army corps that fought at Panipat, one was led by a Muslim general who spearheaded the very first charge, and was a casualty of the war. Thousands of Muslims fought on the Indian side believing that the Marathas were safe-keepers of the Moghul throne. It would be more correct to portray the Maratha armies as “Indian”. Conversely, Ahmed Shah Abdali was interested primarily in taking revenge for the eviction of his son from Lahore, and not in the affairs of Hindustan. This is confirmed by the fact that he retired to Kabul after the Battle of Panipat and did not advance towards Delhi. Given the contest for Lahore, a test of arms between the Afghans and the Marathas was inevitable, and would have taken place with or without the correspondence of Shah Waliullah. Maratha influence in the Delhi-Agra areas did not decrease as a result of the Afghan invasion. In 1785, the Moghul Emperor Shah Alam invited Sindhia of Gwalior to become the divan and reorganize the empire. Maratha power in the Delhi-Agra area decreased and disappeared not because of the Third Battle of Panipat, but because the Marathas were defeated by the Rajputs in 1787. Lastly, in historical hindsight, the Maratha-Afghan contest comes across only as a footnote to the broad and sustained advance of the British upon the subcontinent, which was taking place about the same time.
Shah Waliullah passed away in 1763, leaving behind a scholarly legacy that has seldom been surpassed in the subcontinent. If there is any critique of his work, it has to be that he overlooked the British challenge to Islamic civilization. Even as the Shah was involved in the internal disputes between the Afghans and the Marathas, the shadow of European domination was extending inland from the Indian Ocean. The Battle of Plassey (1757) gave the East India Company control of all the territories from Allahabad to Calcutta. Shah Waliullah must have been aware of the oppressive policies of the Company, and of the economic collapse of Bengal and Bihar under British jurisdiction. Yet, one does not find awareness in his writings about the rising challenge of the West to a static and disintegrating India. Indeed, the great Islamic reformers of the 18th century had their vision directed inward, and were focused more on internal reform than external threat. The task of placing Islam in the context of a world-domineering Western civilization was left to scholars of a later age. Shah Waliullah offered no fresh guidance as to how to live with people of other faiths except to reiterate the practices of an earlier age based on a compartmentalized division between “Dar ul Islam” and “Dar ul Harab”.
(The author is Director, World Organization for Resource Development and Education, Washington, DC; Director, American Institute of Islamic History and Culture, CA; Member, State Knowledge Commission, Bangalore; and Chairman, Delixus Group)
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