While Shiʿi Islam and its imperial expressions were known in the Deccan sultanates from the sixteenth century and expressed in court-sponsored production of theology, it was only in the eighteenth century that Shiʿi political theology emerged in North India in the new state of Awadh. In this paper, I argue that one can discern in the theology of Sayyid Dildar ʿAli Nasirabadi (d. 1820) a clear attempt at forging a new Shiʿi theological dispensation to bolster the state, based upon a tripartite attack on three rival approaches to faith and politics: Akhbarism, Sufism, and the Sunni rationalism of Farangi Mahall. A careful examination of these textual practices within the Awadhi context demonstrates one example of how Indian thinkers responded to the decline of Mughal power and articulated alternative epistemologies in vernacular contexts before the advent of the British Empire.

²Alavi,Seema, “Introduction”, inThe Eighteenth Century in India, (ed.)Alavi,Seema (Delhi,2002), pp.1–41Google Scholar;Barnett,Richard,North India between Empires: Awadh, the Mughals and the British 1720–1801 (Berkeley,1980)Google Scholar;Fisher,Michael,A Clash of Cultures: Awadh, the British and the Mughals (New Delhi,1988)Google Scholar;Alam,Muzaffar,The Crisis of Empire in Mughal North India: Awadh and the Punjab, 1707–48 (New Delhi,1986), esp. pp.204ffGoogle Scholar;Rizvi,Saiyid Athar Abbas,Shāh Walī-Allāh and His Times: A Study of Eighteenth Century Islam, Politics and Society in India (Canberra,1980), pp.111–173Google Scholar.

³Umar,Muhammad,Urban Culture in Northern India during the Eighteenth Century (Delhi,2001), pp.1–42Google Scholar.

⁴Malik,Jamal,Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien: Entwicklungsgeschichte und Tendenzen am Beispiel von Lucknow (Leiden,1997), pp.42–64, 105–125Google Scholar;Umar,Muhammad,Islam in Northern India during the Eighteenth Century (Delhi,1993), pp.192–200Google Scholar;Hasan,Mushirul,From Pluralism to Separatism: Qasbas in Colonial Awadh (New Delhi,2004), pp.1–51Google Scholar, although it is hard to accept his argument for pluralism in the period that we are considering here.

⁵ Rizvi,Shāh Walī-Allāh, p. 183;Ḥazīn-i Lāhījī,Shaykh,Tārīkh va safarnāma, (ed.)Davānī,ʿAlī (Tehran, 1375 Sh/1996), pp.270–286 (his account was written in Delhi in 1742)Google Scholar;Belfour,F. C.,The Life of Sheikh Mohammed Ali Hazin (Bombay,1911), pp.82–103Google Scholar;Bihbahānī,Aḥmad (writing in Patna in 1809),Mirʾāt al-aḥwāl-i jahān-numā: Safarnāma-yi Hind, compiled by Shāʾista Khān (Patna,1992), pp.239ffGoogle Scholar. For a discussion of these texts, seeAlam,Muzaffar andSubrahmanyam,Sanjay,Indo-Persian Travels in the Age of Discovery, 1400–1800 (Cambridge,2007), pp.229–242Google Scholar;Jaʿfarīyān,Rasūl, “Murūrī bar Mirʾāt al-aḥvāl-i jahān-numā”, inMaqālāt-i tārīkhī (Qum, 1417/1996), pp.97–120Google Scholar;Cole,Juan, “Mirror of the world: Iranian ‘orientalism’ and early 19^th century India”,Critique,V (1996), pp.41–60Google Scholar andRizvi,Saiyid Athar Abbas,A Socio-intellectual History of the Isnāʿasharī Shīʿīs in India (Canberra,1986), vol. II, pp.121–125Google Scholar. Another important Iranian traveller who was well received wasShūshtarī,Mīr ʿAbd al-Laṭīf (d. 1805) in hisTuḥfat al-ʿālam, (ed.)Muvaḥḥid,Ṣamad (Tehran,1984)Google Scholar.

⁶ Rizvi,Shāh Walī-Allāh, pp. 190–195.

⁷ A good, though uncritical, account of the state's promotion of Shiʿi culture isKāẓimī,Farūgh,Shāhān-i Avadh aur shīʿīyat (Lucknow,1999)Google Scholar.

⁸Lakhnavī,Āghā Mahdī,Savāniḥ-i ḥayāt-i ḥażrat-i Ghufrān-maʾāb (Karachi,1982), especially15–43Google Scholar;Kashmīrī,Mīrzā Muḥammad ʿAlī,Nujūm al-samāʾ fī tarājim al-ʿulamāʾ, (ed.)Muḥaddith,Mīr Hāshim (Tehran, 1382 Sh/2003), pp.370–374Google Scholar;al-ʿUlamāʾ,Sayyid,Janāb-i Ghufrān-maʾāb (Lucknow,1958)Google Scholar;al-Jazāʾirī,Sayyid Muḥammad ʿAbbās Shūshtarī,Awrāq al-dhahab, ed.al-Ṭurayḥī,Muḥammad Saʿīd (Beirut,2007), pp.319–339Google Scholar;Nawgānvī,Sayyid Muḥammad Ḥusayn,Taẕkira-yi Bē bahā tārīkh al-ʿulamāʾ (New Delhi,2010), pp.154–160Google Scholar; Rizvi,Shīʿīs in India, vol. II, pp. 128–138;Cole,Juan,Roots of North Indian Shi’ism in Iran and Iraq: Religion and State in Awadh 1722–1859 (Berkeley,1988), pp.61–66Google Scholar;Hindī,Sayyid Aḥmad,Warathat al-anbiyāʾ (Lucknow,1918), p.3Google Scholar;ʿAlī,Raḥmān,Taẕkira-yi ʿulamāʾ-yi Hind (Lucknow,1914), pp.60–61Google Scholar;al-Lakhnawī,Sayyid ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Ḥasanī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir wa-bahjat al-masāmiʿ wa-l-manāẓir (Beirut,1999), pp.966–967Google Scholar;al-Kāẓimī,Sayyid Muḥammad Mahdī,Aḥsan al-wadīʿa fī tarājim ashhar mashāhīr mujtahidī al-shīʿa (Baghdad,1929), pp.4–11Google Scholar;Ḥusayn,Sayyid Murtażā,Maṭlaʿ-yi anvār (Karachi,1982), pp.220–227Google Scholar;Kākorvī,Masʿūd al-Anvār ʿAlavī,Awadh kē chand ʿarabī ʿulamāʾ (Lucknow,2000), pp.73–108Google Scholar;Ḥusayn,Mīrzā Jaʿfar,Qadīm lakhnaw kī ākhirī bahār (New Delhi,1981), pp.229–232Google Scholar;Kākorvī,Shaykh Muḥammad ʿAlī ʿAẓmat,Tavārīkh-i mulk-i Awadh musammā bih Muraqqaʿ-yi Khusravī (Lucknow,1986), pp.422–423Google Scholar. Important contemporary primary sources include the anonymousĀʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā (MS Nāṣiriyya, rijāl shīʿa 1) written by a student of Dildār ʿAlī,Tadhkirat al-ʿulamāʾ of Sayyid Mahdī bin Najaf ʿAlī, Shudhūr al-ʿiqyān fī tarājim al-aʿyān (MS National Library Kolkata, Buhar Collection 278) of Sayyid Iʿjāz Ḥusayn Kintūri,al-Maqāmiʿ al-ḥaydarīya [gloss onĀʾīna-yi ḥaqqnumā] of Sayyid ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Ḥusaynī (MS British Library, Delhi Persian 1190, fol. 188v–284r), and al-Ḥisn al-matīn fī aḥwāl al-wuzarāʾ wa-l-salāṭīn of Sayyid ʿAbbās Ardistānī (MS National Archives of India, Arabic 235 and 236). I am grateful to James Onley for procuring a copy of the last one for me.

⁹ On Sayyid Ghulām Ḥusayn, see al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 1053; on Mullā Ḥaydar ʿAlī, seeKhayrābādī,Fażl-i Imām,ʿAmad-nāma, ed.Shahābī,Intiẓāmullāh (Karachi,1956), pp.2–3Google Scholar, al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 960, and Raḥmān ʿAlī,Taẕkira-yi ʿulamāʾ-yi Hind, pp. 54–55; on Mullā Bābullāh, see Khayrābādī,ʿAmad-nāma, p. 8. The latter two had been students of Mullā Ḥamdullāh.

¹⁰ On Tafażżul Ḥusayn Khān, see al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 940; Rizvi,Shīʿīs in India, vol. II, pp. 227–230. ʿAbd ʿAlī, having spent fifteen years with Ḥāfiẓ Raḥmat Khān, fled and found another Rohilla patron in Rampur. SeeʿAlī,Raḥmān,Tazkira-yi ʿulamāʾ-yi Hind (Lucknow,1914), pp.122–123Google Scholar; al-Lakhnawī,Nuhzat al-khawāṭir, pp. 1021–1023;Farangī-Maḥallī,Mullā Valīullāh,al-Aghṣān al-arbaʿa li-l-shajara al-ṭayyība(Lucknow,1881), pp.121–126Google Scholar;Anṣārī,Muftī Rażā,Bānī-yi dars-i niẓāmī (Lucknow,1973), pp.103–125Google Scholar; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, p. 73;Hamilton,Charles,An Historical Relation of the Origin, Progress, and Final Dissolution of the Government of the Rohilla Afghans in the Northern Provinces of Hindostan (London,1787), pp.220–237Google Scholar;Fayżbakhsh,Muḥammad,Farraḥbakhsh, tr.Hoey,William,Memoirs of Delhi and Faizabad, being a translation of the “Tārīkh Farrahbakhsh” of Muhammad Faiz-Bakhsh from the original Persian (Allahabad,1888), vol. II, pp.3–12Google Scholar; Cole,Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 48–49; Barnett,North India between Empires, pp. 92–93;Āfrīdī,Dawr,Tārīkh-i rūhilkhand (Delhi,1986), pp.57–77 on the conflict between Shujāʿ al-Dawla and Ḥāfiẓ Raḥmat Khān and his consequent deathGoogle Scholar; cf.Rāmpūrī,Muḥammad Najm al-Ghanī Khān,Tārīkh-i Awadh (Lucknow,1976), pp.314–331Google Scholar; Kākorvī,Tavārīkh-i mulk-i Awadh musammā bih Muraqqaʿ-yi Khusravī, p. 68;Niẓāmī,Muṣṭafā Ḥusayn,Tārīkh-i Rūhilkhand 1707 tā 1775: Gul-i raḥmat ka taqābulī jāʾiza (Lucknow,1986), pp.105–111Google Scholar.

¹¹Iṣfahānī,Abū Ṭālib,Tafżīḥ al-ghāfilīn [History of Asafu’d Daulah Nawab Wazir of Oudh], tr.Hoey,William, (Allahabad,1885), p.3Google Scholar; Fisher,A Clash of Cultures, pp. 66–67;Qureshi,Hamid A.,The Mughals, The English, and the Rulers of Awadh from 1722 to 1856 (Lucknow,2003), pp.83, 124–128Google Scholar.

¹² Anon.,Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā, fol. 47; Kintūrī,Shudhūr al-ʿiqyān, vol. I, fol. 136r; Ardistānī,al-Ḥisn al-matīn, vol. I, pp. 91–92.

¹³ Anon.,Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā, fols. 51v–56v.

¹⁴ Fisher,A Clash of Cultures, p. 77; Qureshi,The Rulers of Awadh, p. 253.

¹⁵ Fisher,A Clash of Cultures, pp. 136–138.

¹⁶ Anon.,Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā, fols. 65–67; Cole,The Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 179–180.

¹⁷ Cf. al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 1101;Ṭabāṭabāʾī,Sayyid Ghulām ʿAlī,Tārīkh-i ʿImād al-saʿādāt (Lucknow,1864), p.137Google Scholar.

¹⁸ Anon.,Āʾīna-yi ḥaqq-numā, fol. 67v; Rizvi,Shīʿīs in India, vol. II, p. 131; Cole,The Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, p. 129.

¹⁹Cole,Juan,Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shiʿite Islam (London,2002), pp.79–82Google Scholar;Litvak,Meir, “The finances of the ʿulamāʾ communities of Najaf and Karbala, 1796–1904’,Die Welt des Islams,XL,1 (1999), pp.46–49Google Scholar.

²⁰ Rizvi,Shīʿīs in India, vol. II, pp. 139–146; Jaʿfar Ḥusayn,Qadīm lakhnaw, pp. 231–236.

²¹ On the Madrasa-yi Sulṭānīya, seeChawdhurī,Fāżil Nabīl, “Sulṭānīya”,Khāndān-i Ijtihād (Lucknow)X (October2008), pp.8–28Google Scholar. Shūshtarī'sAwrāq al-dhahab (cited above in n. 6) is primarily a biography of Sulṭān al-ʿulamāʾ; cf. al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, pp. 1082–83; al-Kāẓimī,Aḥsan al-wadīʿa, pp. 52–56. On Sayyid Ḥusayn, see al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 954; al-Kāẓimī,Aḥsan al-wadīʿa, pp. 56–58.

²² Cole,The Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 186–187. On Sayyid Ḥasan, see al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 950, and on Sayyid ʿAlī,Ibid., p. 940.

²³ ʿAlī Fāżil, “Hiba-nāma va vaṣīyat-nāma-yi Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī”,Kitāb-i Shīʿa I, 2 (1389 Sh/2010), pp. 153–154.

²⁴ Umar,Urban Culture in Northern India, pp. 7–9.

²⁵ Cole,Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 92–119;Mohan,Surendra,Awadh under the Nawabs: Politics, Culture, and Communal Relations 1722–1856 (New Delhi,1997), pp.79–89Google Scholar.

²⁶ Umar,Urban Culture in Northern India, pp. 66–71;Sadiq,Muhammad,A History of Urdu Literature (London,1964), pp.117–144Google Scholar.

²⁷ Āzād,Āb-e ḥayāt, pp. 419–428; Sadiq,Urdu Literature, pp. 145–163;Hyder,Syed Akbar,Reliving Karbala: Martyrdom in South Asian Memory (New York,2006), pp.30–40Google Scholar;Zaidī,ʿAlī Jawād,A History of Urdu Literature (New Delhi,1993), pp.159–169Google Scholar;idem,Mir Anis (New Delhi, 1986);Naqvī,Hilāl,Bīsvīñ ṣadī awr jadīd marsiya (London/Karachi,1994), pp.33–90Google Scholar.

²⁸Lakhnawī,Sayyid Bāqir Shams,Hindustān mēn shīʿat kī tārīkh aur Shīʿī ʿaqāʾid kī tafṣīl (Lucknow, n.d.), pp.14–23Google Scholar; Umar,Islam in Northern India, pp. 195–197.

²⁹ʿAlī,Sayyid Dildār,Asās al-uṣūl (Lucknow,1848), pp.2–3Google Scholar.

³⁰McDermott,Martin,The Theology of al-Shaikh al-Mufīd (Beirut,1978), pp.57–69Google Scholar.

³¹Astarābādī,Muḥammad Amīn,al-Fawāʾid al-madanīya [wa-bi-dhaylihi al-Shawāhid al-Makkīya li-Nūr al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī] (Qum,2005)Google Scholar.

³² Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī,Asās al-uṣūl, pp. 4–6.

³³Ibid., pp. 154–162.

³⁴Bihārī,Muḥibbullāh,Musallam al-thubūt (Cairo,1904), pp. 25ffGoogle Scholar.

³⁵ Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī,Asās al-uṣūl, pp. 162–190.

³⁶ Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī,al-Shihāb al-thāqib (MS British Library, Delhi Arabic 909), fol. 2v–3r.

³⁷Ibid., fol. 3v–4v.

³⁸Jaʿfarīyān,Rasūl,Siyāsat va farhang-i rūzgār-i ṣafavī (Tehran, 1388 Sh/2009), pp.678–680, 797–805Google Scholar. For Qummī's texts, I have consulted the following manuscripts:al-Fawāʾid al-dīnīya (MS Tehran Majlis-i Shūrā 3479), andḤikmat al-ʿārifīn (MS Tehran Majlis-i Shūrā 4013).

³⁹ On the music and dancing theme, see Jaʿfarīyān,Siyāsat va farhang-i rūzgār-i ṣafavī, pp. 931–955.

⁴⁰ For an excellent study of Sufism and anti-Sufism in the Safavid period that provides the background for these Indian discussions, see Ata Anzali,Safavid Shiʿism, the Eclipse of Sufism, and the Emergence of ʿIrfān (unpublished PhD dissertation, Rice University, 2012).

⁴¹Rizvi,Saiyid Athar Abbas,A History of Sufism in India (Delhi,1992)Google Scholar, vol. II, pp. 36ff;Vassie,Roderic, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Chishtī and the Bhagavadgita”, inThe Heritage of Sufism II, (ed.)Lewisohn,L. (Oxford,1999), pp.367–378Google Scholar;Chittick,William, “Notes on Ibn ʿArabī's influence in the subcontinent”,Muslim World,LXXXII (1992), pp.218–241Google Scholar;Lipton,G.A.,Muḥibb Allāh Ilāhābādī's The Equivalence between Giving and Receiving: Avicennan Neoplatonism and the School of Ibn ʿArabī in South Asia (unpublished MA dissertation,University of North Carolina,2007)Google Scholar.

⁴² Al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, pp. 1042–43;al-Ghanī,Muḥammad Najm,Tārīkh-i Awadh (Lucknow,1919), vol. III, pp.132–133Google Scholar; cf. Umar,Islam in Northern India, p. 196.

⁴³ Rizvi,Shāh Walī-Allāh, pp. 256–277.

⁴⁴ Muḥammad ʿAlī Bihbahānī,Risāla-yi khayrātīya dar ibṭāl-i ṭarīqa-yi ṣūfīya, (ed.) Mahdī Rajāʾī (Qum, 1371 Sh/1992).

⁴⁵ʿAlī,Sayyid Dildār,Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl fī ʿilm al-uṣūl, (ed.)Ḥasan,Sayyid Āqā (Lucknow,1902), vol. I, pp.1–3Google Scholar.

⁴⁶Ibid., p. 9.

⁴⁷Ibid., pp. 16–36.

⁴⁸Ibid., pp. 26–27.

⁴⁹Ibid., pp. 90–98.

⁵⁰Ibid., pp. 177–179.

⁵¹Ibid., pp. 110–150, 223–264.

⁵²ʿAlī,Sayyid Dildār,Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, vol. II (MS British Library, Delhi Arabic 920)Google Scholar, fol. 67r–121r.

⁵³ʿAlī,Sayyid Dildār,Mirʾāt al-ʿuqūl, vol. V (MS British Library, Delhi Arabic 923)Google Scholar, fol. 21r onwards.

⁵⁴Ibid., fol. 200r–396r.

⁵⁵Rizvi,Saiyid Athar Abbas,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: Puritanism, Sectarian Polemics and Jihād (Canberra,1982), pp.260–355Google Scholar.

⁵⁶al-ʿAzīz,Shāh ʿAbd,Tūhfa-yi isnāʿasharīya (rpt.,Istanbul,1994), pp.3–4Google Scholar. Cf. Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, p. 256; Umar,Islam in Northern India, pp. 215–216.

⁵⁷ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 5–62; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 261–269. For a famous Shiʿi polemic claiming Ibn Sabāʾ was merely a legendary figure, seeMurtaḍā,Sayyid,ʿAbdullāh bin Sabāʾ (Najaf,1956)Google Scholar; for a recent scholarly assessment, debunking the black myth but arguing for the historicity of the figure, seeAnthony,Sean,The Caliph and the Heretic: Ibn Sabāʾ and the Origins of Shiʿism (Leiden,2011)Google Scholar.

⁵⁸ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tūhfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 62–199; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 269–280.

⁵⁹ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 199–231; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 280–282.

⁶⁰ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 231–276; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 282–286.

⁶¹ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 276–314; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 286–290.

⁶² Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfyi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 314–348; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 290–293.

⁶³ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 348–473; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 293–304.

⁶⁴ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 473–493; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, p. 304.

⁶⁵ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 493–529; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 304–305.

⁶⁶ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 529–699; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 305–337.

⁶⁷ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 699–779; Rizvi, Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 337–352.

⁶⁸ Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz,Tuḥfa-yi isnāʿasharīya, pp. 779–810; Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 352–355.

⁶⁹Ibid., pp. 356–470. The most extensive refutation of theTuḥfa wasNuzhat-i isnāʿasharīya by Ḥakīm Mīrzā Muḥammad Kāmil Kashmīrī (d. 1235/1819–1820), known as the Fourth Martyr (shahīd-i rābiʿ) – seeKashmīrī,Mīrzā Muḥammad Mahdī,Takmila-yi Nujūm al-samāʾ (Qum,1978), vol. II, p.422Google Scholar;Rizvi,Saiyid Athar Abbas,A Socio-intellectual History of the Isnāʿasharī Shīʿīs in India (Canberra,1986), vol. II, pp.96–97Google Scholar.

⁷⁰ʿAlī,Sayyid Dildār,Ṣawārim-i ilāhīyāt (Calcutta, 1218/1804), pp.180–187Google Scholar; cf. Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, pp. 388–389.

⁷¹ Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī,Ṣawārim-i ilāhīyāt, pp. 237–241; idem,Ḥusām al-Islām (Calcutta, 1218/1804), p. 405; cf. Rizvi,Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, p. 391.

⁷² Sayyid Dildār ʿAlī,Ṣawārim-i ilāhīyāt, p. 97; idem,Ḥusām al-islām, pp. 11–14.

⁷³ Cole,The Roots of North Indian Shiʿism, pp. 204–209.

⁷⁴Ibid., pp. 163–165; cf. al-Lakhnawī,Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, p. 1085. Akhbārī's work is calledMaʿāwil al-ʿuqūl li-qilaʿ Asās al-uṣūl [Intellectual arguments to destroy the foundations of jurisprudence] and mentioned in the famous bio-bibliography of Shiʿi texts,al-Dharīʿa ilā taṣānīf al-shīʿa of Āqā Buzurg Ṭihrānī (Volume 2, no.7). Some of Dildār ʿAlī's students responded with works such asMuṭāriq al-ḥaqq wa-l-yaqīn li-kasr muʿāwil al-shayāṭīn [Pathways of truth and certainty destroying the satanic arguments].

⁷⁵ Anon.,al-Radd al-qaṣī ʿalā Dildār ʿAlī, (MS British Library, Delhi Arabic 967), fol. 294v–298r. Further examination of this text alongside the Akhbārī text ofMaʿāwil al-ʿuqul may prove them to be the same.

⁷⁶Ibid., fol. 298v–307v.

⁷⁷ ʿAlī Akbar b. Mīrzā Asad al-Dīn Sirāj al-Ḥaqq Mawdūdī,al-Fawāʾid al-Mawdūdīya, MS British Library Delhi Persian 953, fol. 92v–131v.

⁷⁸ Anon.,Radd-i Shihāb-i thāqib, MS British Library Delhi Persian 1190, fol. 171v–172r.

⁷⁹Ibid., fol. 180r–184r.

⁸⁰Ibid., fol. 174v–178r.

⁸¹Ibid., fol. 187v.

⁸² This text, of which only the initial volume appeared, was originally lithographed and published by the Nāṣirī Press in Jaunpur in 1913. A new typeset edition is being prepared by Mahdī Khāja-pīrī and will be published by the Iran Cultural Centre in New Delhi with an introduction by AkbarSubūt. On Nawnehravī, see Nawgānvī,Taẕkira-yi Bē bahā, p. 381.