Islams Reformers

patient. He worshipped much. (95-158)
“XXII: Mahdî ibn Mansûr was learned, brave, intelligent and
very generous. Everybody liked him. His i’tiqâd was very pure.
He slew (a number of irreligious people called) zindiqs. (126-
169)
“XXIII: Hadî ibn Mahdî was learned, intelligent, eloquent and
generous. It was written on his seal, ‘I believe and trust in Allâhu
ta’âlâ.’ (147-170)
“XXVI: Hârûn ar-Rashîd ibn Mahdî performed a hundred
rak’as of salât every day and every night. He went on hajj one
year and on ghazâ the following year. He observed Islam in
everything he did. He had in himself all the beautiful habits. (148-
193)”
Al-Imâm al-a’zam Abû Hanîfa, Imâm al-Ghazâlî, Imâm an-
Nawawî, Ibn Hajar, al-Imâm ar-Rabbânî and Khâlid al-Baghdâdî
and many other great scholars were identical with these people. It
is obvious that people like Mawdûdî, Sayyid Qutb and
Hamidullah are quite outside this circle. Nothing can be so
credulous as associating Islamic scholarship with such people who
are quite unaware of Islamic knowledge and Islamic scholars and
who cannot penetrate into the inner essence of Islam but observe
it from without like non-Muslim orientalist writers. The branches
of knowledge taught in madrasas which Mawdûdî calls “scholastic
knowledge” are ’ulûm an-naqliyya (religious knowledge). And
what he calls “rational knowledge” is ’ulûm al-’aqliyya (scientific,
experimental knowledge). These two branches make up the
Islamic knowledge. It does not befit a Muslim to say that fiqh and
hadîth scholars have known one of these branches of knowledge
without knowing the other. Islamic scholars have been the very
exalted people praised in the Qur’ân and Hadîth. They are the
heirs of prophets. They have organized the division of labour
among themselves, each undertaking the job of disseminating a
separate branch of knowledge. This division of labour confuses
the ignorant, and they suppose that Islamic scholars have not been
exalted in other branches of knowledge. Hadrat ’Abd al-Wahhâb
ash-Sha’rânî wrote at the beginning of his book Al-mîzân alkubrâ:
“Hadrat Abû Hanîfa, the founder of and expert in the
knowledge of fiqh, was a great Walî like Hadrat ’Abd al-Qâdir al-
Jîlânî. He was a man of karâmât like him. But he did not
undertake to spread the knowledge pertaining to the heart or to
purify the souls. He undertook the task of spreading all kinds of
physically practised worship, that is, the knowledge of fiqh. The
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