Leading Shīʿī scholar of Lucknow, of the Uṣūlī school, who read Ḥamd Allāh’s commentary on the Sullam al-ʿulūm in Sandīla, wrote a gloss on it, and taught a line of Shīʿī commentators on the book.
Life
Dildār ʿAlī was born about 1166/1753 in Naṣīrābād, some twenty miles from Rāy Barēlī, into a Sayyid family that traced its descent to Jaʿfar, brother of the eleventh Imam. Nuzhat al-khawāṭir says he read most of the madrasa books in Allahabad with Ghulām Ḥusayn al-Dakanī, then went to Sandīla and read Ḥamd Allāh’s on the of the Sullam al-ʿulūm with the author’s son, Ḥaydar ʿAlī, and some books with Bāb Allāh al-Jawnpūrī. Asad Q. Ahmed adds that Bāb Allāh was himself a commentator on Ḥamd Allāh. In 1193/1779 he travelled to Iraq, where he studied with Muḥammad Bāqir al-Bihbahānī, ʿAlī al-Ṭabāṭabāʾī, Mahdī al-Shahristānī and Mahdī Baḥr al-ʿUlūm, and then to Mashhad, where he received an ijāza from Mahdī b. Hidāyat Allāh al-Iṣfahānī.
Back in India he settled in Lucknow, first as tutor to the sons of the minister Ḥasan Riḍā Khān. On 13 Rajab 1200 (1786), with the consent of Nawwāb Āṣaf al-Dawla, he led the first Friday and congregational prayers of the Twelver Shīʿa in Awadh, and he went on to build up a programme of Shīʿī legal and theological revival, writing refutations of Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz’s Tuḥfa-yi Ithnā ʿashariyya, of the Akhbārī school and of the Sufis. He died in Lucknow on 19 Rajab 1235 (2 May 1820) and was buried in the Ḥusayniyya he had built, Ghufrān-maʾāb.
Among some thirty works, the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi lists a gloss on Ḥamd Allāh al-Sandīlawī’s on the Sullam, parts of which were printed with the Sullam, and a commentary on Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s commentary on al-Abharī’s Hidāyat al-ḥikma, which Nuzhat says he wrote early in life. Ahmed places him at a turning point of the Sullam tradition: Ḥamd Allāh’s commentary first flourished among Shīʿī scholars in Sandīla, and through Dildār ʿAlī and his sons Muḥammad (Sulṭān al-ʿUlamāʾ, d. 1284/1868) and Ḥusayn (d. 1273/1857), who also wrote on it, it was carried on among the Shīʿī scholars of Lucknow.
Uncertain or disputed
- Year of birth: the TDV gives 1166/1753; Nuzhat says ‘about 1166’.
- Nuzhat’s list of his works does not mention the gloss on Ḥamd Allāh; it is attested by the TDV (after Āghā Buzurg) and by Ahmed.
Works
- Ḥāshiya ʿalā Sharḥ Sullam al-ʿulūm li-Ḥamd Allāh — on Ḥamd AllāhGloss on Ḥamd Allāh’s commentary; parts printed with the Sullam (TDV, after al-Dharīʿa VI, 123; Ahmed).gloss
- Sharḥ Hidāyat al-ḥikmaOn Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Shīrāzī’s commentary on al-Abharī’s Hidāyat al-ḥikma; an early work (Nuzhat; TDV).gloss
- ʿImād al-Islām fī ʿilm al-kalām (Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl)Theology in five volumes; three printed (Lucknow 1318).work
- Asās al-uṣūlRefutation of Muḥammad Amīn al-Astarābādī’s al-Fawāʾid al-madaniyya, the manifesto of the Akhbārīs.work
Reception
Through him and his sons Ḥamd Allāh’s on the Sullam remained a of study among the Shīʿī scholars of Lucknow throughout the nineteenth century (Ahmed).
Sources (3)
- Mustafa Öz, “Dildâr Ali”, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi 9 (1994), 297–298
- ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Ḥasanī, Nuzhat al-khawāṭir 7:965–967, entry ‘al-Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī al-Mujtahid al-Naṣīrābādī’ (al-Maktaba al-Shāmila)
- Asad Q. Ahmed, Palimpsests of Themselves (University of California Press, 2022), 29, 33 (open access)