Aḥmad ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq al-Sihālawī

Grandson of Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī of Farangī Maḥall and author of Suddat al-ʿulūm (1136/1723–24), one of the earliest commentaries on Muḥibb Allāh al-Bihārī’s Sullam al-ʿulūm.

Life

Nuzhat al-khawāṭir says that he was born in Sihālī in the very year in which his grandfather, Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī, the founder of the Farangī Maḥall family of scholars, was killed: on 19 or 27 Rajab 1103 (1692). He moved to Lucknow and studied with his uncle Niẓām al-Dīn al-Sihālawī until he surpassed his fellow students; he taught and gave fatwas while his teacher was still alive and became one of the leading scholars of the city.

His Suddat al-ʿulūm, completed in 1136/1723–24, is one of the first commentaries on the Sullam al-ʿulūm. Asad Q. Ahmed, who used a manuscript in the Rampur Raza Library, notes that in its introduction the author mentions other commentaries already in existence, and that he began with the second half of the book, on assents (taṣdīqāt), turning to the conceptions (taṣawwurāt) only afterwards. He also wrote a partial self-commentary on it. In one passage he first calls al-Bihārī a student of Quṭb al-Dīn and then corrects himself: ‘rather, he was a student of his student’. Nuzhat calls the work ‘a full commentary’ (sharḥ basīṭ) and names as his other works glosses on Mīr Zāhid’s glosses on the Risāla (the Quṭbiyya), on al-Dawānī’s commentary on the Tahdhīb and on al-Jurjānī’s commentary on the Mawāqif.

Ahmed observes that none of the commentaries of the first half of the twelfth/eighteenth century, his included, attracted super-commentaries, although they influenced commentaries of the same generation. His family line continued in the Sullam tradition: his grandson Mullā Mubīn wrote Mirʾāt al-shurūḥ, the fullest commentary on the book, and Barakat Allāh al-Farangī Maḥallī was later trained by two of his descendants.

Works

• Suddat al-ʿulūm sharḥ Sullam al-ʿulūm سُدَّةُ العُلُومِ شَرْحُ سُلَّمِ العُلُومِ — к Sullam al-ʿulūmCompleted 1136/1723–24, beginning with the assents. Manuscript: Rampur, Raza Library MS 3402/1815D (Ahmed). A Lucknow print of the Taṣawwurāt part under his name may be this work (catalogue; not checked).комментарий
• Self-commentary on Suddat al-ʿulūmPartial (Ahmed, after ʿArshī’s Rampur catalogue).глосса
• Glosses on Mīr Zāhid’s glosses on the Risāla quṭbiyya, on al-Dawānī’s commentary on the Tahdhīb and on Sharḥ al-MawāqifNamed in Nuzhat al-khawāṭir.глосса

Reception

Ahmed counts Suddat al-ʿulūm among the first layer of commentaries on the Sullam, written within a generation of its author’s death.