Shah Abdur Rahim

Shah Abdur Rahim (1644-1719) was an Islamic scholar and a writer who assisted in the compilation of Fatawa-e-Alamgiri, the voluminous code of Islamic law. He was the father of the Muslim philosopher Shah Waliullah Dehlawi. He became a disciple of Khwaja Khurd son of Khawaja Baqi billah a revered Sufi of Delhi. He established Madrasa Rahimiyya in Delhi, a theological college which later played a part in the religious emancipation of Muslim India and became the breeding ground of religious reformers and mujahideen like Shah Waliullah and Shah Abdul Aziz.

Interpretations of Jihad in South Asia, An Intellectual History, 2018

 * Tariq Rahman - Interpretations of Jihad in South Asia_ An Intellectual History-de Gruyter (2018)


 * It may be instructive to recall that his father, Shāh‘Abdul Raḥīm, could have been his role model in the matter of writing letters to powerful princes to undertake jihad. For it was the pater familias who wrote a letter to Mīr Qamar al-Dīn Khān Ṣiddīqī popularly known as Āṣaf Jāh (1671–1748), the pioneer of the Deccan based state whose rulers were called Niẓāms, exhorting him to undertake jihad to weaken the infidels. ‘Abdul Raḥīm begins his letter with the assertion that it has already been decided that the infidels (kuffār) will be defeated and humiliated and if Āṣaf Jāh wants to take credit for this he should defeat them. He ends on the mystical note that ‘things said even with confidantes in secret are being revealed here on the tip of the pen so that no excuse should remain’.