Shah Ismail Dehlvi (26 April, 1779 – 6 May, 1831) was an Indian Islamic scholar and Salafi-oriented Sufi reformer. He was an active member in the jihad proclaimed by Sayyid Ahmad of Raebareilly with the support of Pashtun tribes against the Sikh Empire, which ruled northwest India with their base in Punjab in the early half of the 19th century. He is considered as an important influence on the Ahl-i Hadith reform movements.
Early life and career
Isma'il Dehlvi was born on 26 April 1779. He was the grandson of famous Islamic scholar and leader Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, through his son Shah Abdul Ghani. When a new Islamic religious revivalist movement appeared in northern India under the leadership of Sayyid Ahmad of Raebareilly (1786 – 1831), he was joined by two members of the Shah Waliullah family: Shah Ismail Dehlavi (1771-1831) and Maulvi Abdul Hai (died 1828) who joined it because they shared its mission and objectives. "The agenda of the new movement known as Tariqah-i-Muhammadiyah was to purify the tenets of Islam from Hindu customs, traditions and cultural practices." "His motive was to convince the Muslim community to purify Islam from Hindu influences and Shiite rituals. He was harsh in his criticism and believed that religion should be practiced in its original form; a thought process which gradually evolved into a Jihad movement." Professor of history at the University of California; Barbara D. Metcalf writes:
According to Andreas Rieck, Syed Ahmad visited towns of North Indian plains from 1818 to 1821 with hundreds of missionaries to preach against Shia beliefs and practices. Syed Ahmad repeatedly destroyed ta'ziyas, an act that resulted in subsequent riots and chaos. Barbara Metcalf offers the following explanation to his anti-shi'ism:
In 1821, Shah Ismail left for Hajj (pilgrimage) along with Syed Ahmad and a group of his devotees. He returned from Haj in 1823, and once again visited different parts of India. For Syed Ahmad and the followers of the Faraizi movement, India was “Darul Harb” (the abode of war) and therefore jihad was obligatory for the Muslims. In his book, Sirat-e-Mustaqeem, Shah Ismail Dehlavi wrote:
"a large part of present-day India has become “Dar-ul-Harab”. Compare the situation with the heavenly blessings of India two and three hundred years ago".
Comparing India with Darul Islam, he said:
"compare India with Rome and Turkey in terms of heavenly blessings".
Establishment of Islamic State
Shah Ismail broke with the popular Indian Hanafi tradition, but subsequently became convinced that he could not set up his ideal society so long as the company rule held sway over the subcontinent. Shah Ismail joined the cause of Sayyid Ahmad, who had moved to the Pashtun areas bordering Afghanistan (today’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) with his followers to lead an armed Jihad against the British. Sayyid Ahmad established a mujahideen state and proclaimed himself as the Amir ul-Mu'minin (Commander of the Faithful). The main objective of the Jihad movement led by Sayyid Ahmad was to establish an Islamic state that rules over the subcontinent. At that time, much of North India was ruled by the British. So the leadership of the jihad movement concluded that they should move to an area with less control of the British and with large majority of Muslim population - North-West Frontier region - which is now known as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan. The Frontier region was chosen to carry out this experimentation, based on the assumption that being devout Muslims, the Pashtuns would support the reformist movement.
The opponents of the mujahideen of Sayyid Ahmad and Shah Ismail labelled them as "Wahhabis", associating them with the Muwahhideen reformers who had risen to prominence in the Arabia. Their followers, however, preferred the term Tariqah-yi Muhammadi (way of Muhammad) to describe themselves. The Tariqah-yi-Muhammadi movement coupled their emphasis on the direct consultation of Scriptural texts with an aggressive campaign against shirk (polytheism) and bidat (heretical innovations), attacking practices they asserted that Indian Muslims had adopted from Hindus or Shias. While the rest of the Indian clergy had commonly differentiated between bidat-i-hasanah and bidat-i-sayyia (good and bad innovations), the Tariqah-i Muhammadiyya criticised all forms of bidat, insisting that the Prophet’s own life and practices were the best guide for Muslims.