Ḥāfiẓ Amān Allāh al-Banārasī

Scholar of law, legal theory and theology who was ṣadr of Lucknow while Muḥibb Allāh al-Bihārī was its qāḍī; their debates, and his arbitration between Mīr Dāmād and Maḥmūd al-Jawnpūrī, belong to the background of the Sullam al-ʿulūm.

Life

Nuzhat al-khawāṭir describes him as one of the well-known scholars of law, legal theory and theology. He was born and grew up in Banāras, learnt the Qurʾān by heart, and read the madrasa books with Shaykh Muḥammad Māh al-Dēwkāmī and Quṭb al-Dīn al-Ḥusaynī al-Shamsābādī, among others; Asad Q. Ahmed adds Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī. Al-Bihārī studied with the same two Quṭb al-Dīns, so the two men were fellow students of one lineage.

In the reign of Awrangzīb he became ṣadr of Lucknow while al-Bihārī was the city’s qāḍī, and Nuzhat says that ‘there passed between them discussions and exchanges that would fill the pages of books’. Among his works Nuzhat lists a commentary on his own work on legal theory, glosses on al-Bayḍāwī’s Qurʾān commentary and on standard books of theology and logic (among them al-Dawānī’s commentary on the ʿAqāʾid and al-Jawnpūrī’s al-Rashīdiyya on disputation), and an arbitration (muḥākama) between Mīr Dāmād, author of al-Ufuq al-mubīn, and Maḥmūd al-Jawnpūrī, author of al-Shams al-bāzigha, on ‘perpetual creation’ (ḥudūth dahrī). Ahmed suggests that it was in such debates that al-Bihārī came to know Mīr Dāmād’s al-Ufuq al-mubīn, which lies beneath some of the solutions of the Sullam. He died in Banāras in 1133/1721.

Works

• Muḥākama between Mīr Dāmād and Maḥmūd al-JawnpūrīOn ‘perpetual creation’ (ḥudūth dahrī), which al-Jawnpūrī had attacked in al-Shams al-bāzigha (Nuzhat; Ahmed).karya
• Glosses on books of theology, legal theory and disputationOn al-ʿAḍudī, al-Talwīḥ, al-Ḥāshiya al-qadīma, Sharḥ al-Mawāqif, al-Dawānī’s Sharḥ al-ʿAqāʾid and al-Jawnpūrī’s al-Rashīdiyya, and on al-Bayḍāwī’s tafsīr (Nuzhat).hasyiyah
• al-Mufassir with its commentary al-MuḥkamOn legal theory (Nuzhat).karya