Int. J. Middle East Stud. 34 (2002), 465494.

Printed in the United States of America

DOI: 10.1017.S0020743802003033

Basheer M. Nafi

A B U A L - T H A N A
A L - A L U S I : A N A L I M ,
OTTOM AN MUF TI, AND EXEGETE
O F T H E Q U R
A N
Abu al-Thana
Shihab al-Din al-Alusi (180254) was one of the most prominent
ulama of mid-19th century Baghdad. In an era in which the Ottoman drive for modernization and centralization was changing the fabric of society and undermining the
power and influence of the ulama class in large parts of the sultanate, al-Alusi was
emerging as a powerful local alim, in terms of both his status as a scholar and his
influence as a public figure. By the time of his death, the Alusis were becoming
firmly established as a recognized ulama family, members of which would continue
to play important roles in the intellectual and political life of Iraq and the Arab Mashriq. The grand Alusi, as Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi was known, however, was, and still
is, a controversial Muslim scholar whose intellectual genealogy and leanings seem to
be difficult to categorize and too contradictory to pin down. Nothing illustrates the
problematic of defining al-Alusis intellectual and theological attitudes better, perhaps,
than the way in which his two sons diverged. Whereas Numan Khayr al-Din al-Alusi
(183699) became one of the most influential Salafi ulama in the late 19th century,
his brother, Abdullah, was known as an alim with strong Sufi tendencies. Mahmud
Shukri al-Alusi (18571924), the son of Abdullah, however, emerged as a highly
regarded member of the growing Salafi circles of the major Arab urban centers in the
beginning of the 20th century.
The purpose of this article is to present a brief study of the life of Abu al-Thana

al-Alusi, to probe the intellectual underpinnings of his major work of tafsr (exegesis
of the Qur
an) and to try to define the position he occupied in the evolution of modern
salafiyya in the Arab-speaking part of the Muslim world. As a school of thought,
salafiyya has been commonly identified with the late 19th- and early-20th-century
Islamic reformist ulama in the Middle East and North Africa, who tended to emphasize their relatedness to the intellectual legacy of Ahmad Taqi al-Din ibn Taymiyya
(12921357) and his disciples.1 David D. Commins, tracing the intellectual genealogy
of the late-19th- and early-20th-century salafiyya, remarked that Ibn Taymiyya
came to hold the status of the intellectual ancestor of Salafism. Religious reformers in Syria,
Iraq, Yemen, and India accorded him the greatest respect, avidly sought his works, and strove
Basheer M. Nafi teaches Islamic History at the Muslim College, London, and Birkbeck College, University
of London, London W5 3RP, United Kingdom; e-mail: basheer.nafi@virgin.net.
2002 Cambridge University Press 0020-7438/02 $9.50

466 Basheer M. Nafi

to have them published. Ibn Taymiyyas position on ijtihad, emulation, reason and revelation,
and myriad other issues provided elaborate arguments, which the Salafis appropriated.2

Described in the writings of modern Arab Salafi scholars as a Salafi and defender
of salafiyya, al-Alusi seems also to have been claimed as one of the intellectual
ancestors of modern salafiyya. Did al-Alusi really relate to and use the ideas of Ibn
Taymiyya? And if he did, to what extent, under which influences, and in which context did he do so?
Ibn Taymiyya, in his response to the Ashari and Mutazili theologies, his objection
to the excesses of tasawwuf and pantheistic Sufism of wadat al-wujud (existential
monism), and his defense of Sunnism against non-Sunni Islamic sects, sought to uphold the tenets of what he saw as orthodox Islam.3 In contrast to the Ashari and
Mutazili invocation of Greek philosophical concepts and analytical tools, Ibn Taymiyya called for the return to and direct understanding of the primary Islamic texts,
the Qur
an and hadith. This call implied a denunciation of madhhabi and sectarian
divisions, as well as a mandate for continuous ijtihad. Although a wide range of
Ibn Taymiyyas ideas had been in circulation within Hanbali circles, he was the
first to advance these ideas in a systematic and elaborate fashion. For Ibn Taymiyya,
pristine Islam is the Islam as was projected and practiced by the salaf of the umma.
The term salaf (ancestors; predecessors), as he used it, indicated the first three
generations of Muslims: companions of the Prophet, their followers, and disciples of
the followers.4 Yet by ascribing particular theological views to those generations of
Muslims, Ibn Taymiyya laid the groundwork for his early students and followers, such
as Ibn al-Qayim, Ibn Abd al-Hadi, al-Dhahabi, and Ibn Kathir, to employ the term
salaf not only in its strict linguistic and generational sense, but also as a school of
thought.5 Ibn Taymiyyas position would thus be described as the Salafi way, Salafi
doctrine, and Salafi belief. Although Ashari theology and taawwuf would dominate the Sunni cultural milieu during the following period, the late 17th and 18th
centuries witnessed a rising interest in Ibn Taymiyyas works. Not only Muhammad
ibn Abd al-Wahhab (170392) but also other eminent ulama, including Ibrahim alKurani (161689), Shah Wali-Allah Dihlawi (170362), Muhammad Murtada alZabidi (173291), and Muhammad ibn Ali al-Shawkani (17601834), were all, in
varying degrees, interested in Ibn Taymiyyas intellectual legacy.6 Behind this revived
interest was the re-emergence of Ibn Taymiyyas ideas as a major source of inspiration
for those ulama who developed critical views of AshariSufi dominance and sought
to challenge the Ashari theology and reform Sufi beliefs and practices.
Because of Ibn Taymiyyas well-known opposition to taawwuf (an aspect of his
thought that was vigorously pursued by Ibn Abd al-Wahhab), it seems inconceivable
for Sufi ulama to subscribe to his teachings. However, the cases of al-Kurani, Dihlawi,
and al-Zabidi, all of whom were ulama with profound Sufi affiliations, suggest the possibility of overlapping attitudes, where both a Sufi-reformist vision and Salafi-inspired
beliefs could coexist. Even Ibn Taymiyyas attitudes toward taawwuf were complex and
discriminatory, where only Sufi believers in wahdat al-wujud were condemned outright.7
One of the aims of this study is to show that al-Alusi, in spite of his acute awareness of
the Wahhabi movement (and perhaps because of this awareness), was more in accord
with al-Kurani, Dihlawi, and al-Zabidi than with Ibn Abd al-Wahhab.

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 467

The other terms that invite clarification for their connection with this studys projection of the intellectual development of al-Alusi are orthodox and traditional. I. Goldziher, defining the difference between Ashari theology and Hanbali theology as expressed particularly by Ibn Taymiyya, employed the terms new orthodoxy and old
orthodoxy. For Goldziher, Ibn Taymiyya represented the old orthodoxy because of
his advocacy of the theological teachings of the early Islamic generations, the salaf.
In a detailed discussion of these views of the Hanbali school, George Makdisi rejected
Goldzihers concepts of dual orthodoxies, implying that Sunni orthodoxy is more
inclusive. The only orthodoxy certified in Islam by the consensus of the community,
Makdisi wrote, is the Sunni orthodoxy, represented since the third/ninth century by
the four schools of Sunni law: Hanafite, Malikite, Shafiite, and Hanbalite. There is
no other orthodoxy recognized by the majority of Muslims.8 But whether the Hanbali
and Ibn Taymiyyas position was more representative of the Sunni orthodoxy than the
Asharis is an area into which Makdisi did not venture. From Makdisis standpoint,
Hanbali and Ibn Taymiyyas theological views are traditional for being inspired by
the Quran and the sunna, whereas the Ashari kalam was a theology of rationalist
inspiration. Given that this study deals with the cultural theological environment of
the 19th century rather than the period of Ibn Taymiyya, and considering the dominance of Ashari theology in the intervening period, traditional Islam is used here
to denote the Ashari perspective of Islam. Tradition is therefore employed in its
broad social-scientific sense,9 rather than to indicate relatedness to the Prophetic traditions. By contrast, orthodox refers to early Islamic theological views as they were
elaborated by Ibn Taymiyya.
In his study of the history of political ideologies, Quentin Skinner has approached
the agents acts, political choices, and ideas as subjects of examination, explored from
within and as part of their broader socio-political context.10 Although ideas could
dictate, constrain, and typify actions, actions on occasion require legitimating in terms
of conventional cultural regimes, thus inviting modification, alteration, or concealing
of a set of ideas. In other words, acts and ideas should be seen as interchangeable
signposts for interpreting historical ideologies. This, however, does not mean that
ideas are treated here as a simple or direct outcome of their social base. First, for one
can understand the significance of al-Alusis intellectual development and the relevance of salafiyya only by also considering the intellectual context (the normative and
the subversive, the conventional, and the unorthodox cultural patterns). And second,
for the interaction of cultural and structural constraints through the human agency is
boundin Durkheims wordsto engender new dimensions of reality, rarely in a
predetermined fashion.

THE M AKI NG OF AN ALIM

Abu al-Thana
Shihab al-Din Mahmud ibn Abdullah al-Husayni al-Alusi was born in
Baghdad to a family of Muslim scholars, claiming a sharifian descent, whose surname
is derived from Alus, a village south of Anat on the upper Euphrates.11 The Alusis,
who were originally residents of Baghdad, moved to Alus in the 17th century, led by
their ancestor Ismail. It is believed that Ismail, an alim of high standing and once a

468 Basheer M. Nafi

mufti of Baghdad, was allocated the land of several villages and river islands in the
Anat region by the Ottoman authorities.12 The rise of the ulama as a main force among
the urban notables (the ayan) in major cities was a common feature of the Ottoman
Middle East at the time. In Baghdad, the ulamas position was further strengthened as
a result of the continuous struggle between the Ottomans and successive rulers of Iran,
from the Safavids onward, over the control of Iraq. Around 175657, Mahmud al-Alusi,
grandfather of Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi, returned to Baghdad. It is not clear why Mahmud
al-Alusi decided to bring his branch of the family back to Baghdad after almost a
century of residing in the Anat region. But because neither Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi nor
his descendants would make reference to land possession in Alus, it seems that the
familyor, at least, Mahmuds branch of ithad lost the right to its land holdings.13
Private land ownership had not yet been established in the Ottoman domain, and the
transfer of rights to land or land taxes from one notable to another was not rare.
Abdullah al-Alusi (d. 1830), son of Mahmud and the father of Abu al-Thana
, was
also an alim, trained in the Hanafi school of fiqh. He was perhaps one of the first
Alusis to embrace the Hanafi madhhab (school of fiqh), for the family is widely
believed to have been of Shafii background. The attraction of official posts in the
Ottoman ulama hierarchy, which was exclusively a Hanafi institution, encouraged
many Arab ulama families to subscribe to the Hanafi school of fiqh in order to improve their sons chances in the competition for position and wealth.14 Given the status
of the Alusis as new arrivals in Baghdad, such a move was even more appealing if
they were to re-establish their roots in the learned community and the citys ayan
circles. Indeed, Abdullah al-Alusi would soon rise to become a teacher at the Mulkhana school and would then be appointed to the prestigious school of Ali Pasha, a
position that was usually offered to the most prominent of all teachers in Baghdad.15
Although not entirely stable under the semi-autonomous rule of the Mamluks, Baghdad of the early 19th century was quietly emerging as a center of Sunni learning. Both
the Ottoman authorities and the local Mamluk rulers were still deeply apprehensive
of Persian interests in Iraq and commonly suspected the loyalty of the Iraqi Shiis and
their ulama. By supporting the Sunni circles of learning, the Ottomans and the Mamluks hoped to create a counterbalance to the powerful Shii centers of Najaf and Karbala. The Mamluks, in addition, never commanded the required legitimacy to justify
their semi-independence from the Ottoman central government; support of the local
populations, therefore, was vital for maintaining their status. In a society whose outlook was shaped by religion, this support could be garnered only by the local ulama,
spokesmen of the people. The flourishing of Sunni learning in the city was by and
large associated with a group of Arab and Arabized Kurdish notable families, including the Haydaris, the Jabburis, the Suwaydis, the Rawis, the Shawwafs, and the Alusis,
who had been ulama-producing families for several generations.16 Baghdad was also
a crossroads and a resting place for Indian and Central Asian ulama moving from east
to west or north to south. In this flourishing and evolving environment of Islamic
learning, concentrated in a wide range of ulama circles held at various schools and
mosques, Abu al-Thana
was to receive his education.
Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi was one of three sons born to Abdullah al-Alusi, all of
whom rose to prominence in the Sufi and ulama circles of Baghdad. To prepare his
son for a scholarly career, Abdullah paid great attention to the education of Abu al-

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 469

Thana
from an early age. Before reaching age seven, Abu al-Thana
was taught various disciplines of the Arabic language and was introduced to the primary texts of
Hanafi and Shafii fiqh by his father and Mulla Husayn al-Jabburi, the young Alusis
first two teachers.17 The combination of Shafii and Hanafi education was a strong
indication of Abdullah al-Alusis desire to preserve the tradition of Shafii fiqh in the
family, although he was certainly aware that his sons career would prosper only
through the Hanafi school. At age ten, Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi finalized the first stage
of his learning and was given permission by al-Jabburi to seek other teachers. Subsequently, Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi joined the circle of his cousin Ali ibn Ahmad al-Alusi
to receive instruction in Ashari theology, while seeking to study additional texts of
fiqh with other ulama, including Mulla Muhammad al-Shawwaf, his son Abd al-Aziz,
Mulla Darwish ibn Arab, and Sayyid Amin ibn Ali al-Hilli. Among his many teachers, however, Ala
al-Din al-Musilli, Ali al-Suwaydi, and Khalid al-Naqshbandi seem
to have been the most influential in shaping his outlook as an alim.
Al-Musilli, whom Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi joined at age thirteen, was a distinguished
alim but a demanding teacher with a difficult personality, a reputation that left him
with only a small number of students. Through his father, Salah al-Din Yusuf, and his
other teacher, Isa al-Halabi, al-Musilli is connected to the Yemeni scholars of hadith,
Muhammad ibn Ala
al-Din and Abd al-Khaliq al-Mizjaji, as well as to the Damascene scholar of hadith Abd al-Rahman al-Kuzbari (the grand Kuzbari, d. 177172).18
Both chains of knowledge indicate not only the powerful credentials of al-Musilli but
also the strong ties that connected the ulama of Baghdad with the wider circles of
knowledge in the Arab Mashriq during the 18th and 19th centuries. Al-Musillis idiosyncratic lifestyle and aversion to circles of power led him to reject a gift presented
to him by the renowned Mamluk official Dawud Pasha when he was still a dafterdar
(director of finance) of vilayet Baghdad. Like other ambitious Mamluks before him,
Dawud Pasha was apparently trying to pave his way toward capturing the governorship of Baghdad by canvassing the citys prominent ulama. Once he achieved his goal
in January 1817, Dawud Pasha ordered Shaykh Ala
al-Din to be exiled to the city of
Mosul. Although the exile order was later rescinded on the intercession of other ulama
and notables, Dawud Pasha continued to mistreat and harass al-Musilli until his death
in 1817, a few months after the rise of Dawud Pasha to power.19 This incident, while
conforming with the ascetic image of Ala
al-Din al-Musilli, reveals other aspects of
the relationship between men of the sword and men of knowledge in early-19thcentury Baghdad, which was not always equitable or smooth.
The bulk of al-Alusis basic education in fiqh and theology was the outcome of his
joining the circle of Shaykh Ala
al-Din al-Musilli, in whose companionship he spent
more time than with any other of his teachers. But though he would always be proud
to extol the memory of al-Musilli, at a later stage of his life, al-Alusi seemed to feel
the need to augment his scholarly credentials with further ijazas (licenses) from other
eminent ulama of his time. These he obtained from the Maliki faqih Shaykh Yahya
al-Marwazi al-Amadi of Baghdad, Shaykh Abd al-Latif ibn Ali Fath-Allah of Beirut,
and the Damascene scholar of hadith Shaykh Muhammad al-Kuzbari.20 There is no
evidence, however, that these ijazas were granted after a period of companionship;
they were, rather, a kind of approval ijazas. Sometime in the 16th and 17th centuries,
the ijaza, which had originated earlier in Islamic history to denote a personal form of

470 Basheer M. Nafi

the transmission of knowledge from teacher to student after a considerable period of
companionship, began to degenerate to express mere approval of existing knowledge,
as well. The differentiation between the two types of ijaza is in some cases necessary
to delineate the educational background of Ottoman ulama, for the approval ijaza
could be obtain by correspondence or after only a brief encounter and did not entail
a period of companionship.
Shaykh Ali al-Suwaydi (17491821), al-Alusis second most influential teacher,
was a different kind of alim altogether. His father, Muhammad Said, and his uncle
Abd al-Rahman were both scholars of hadith who received ijazas from or established
contacts with the great 18th-century scholars of hadith and reformist ulama of Cairo
and Madina, such as Muhammad Murtada al-Zabidi, Muhammad Hayat al-Sindi, and
Abdullah ibn Salim al-Basri.21 Emerging as a main scholar of hadith and history, alSuwaydi was deeply immersed in public and state affairs. By becoming a close adviser
to Suleiman the Young (al-Saghir), the wali of Baghdad from 1807 to 1810 and representing him in the inspection of the Basra customs services, al-Suwaydi crossed the
line between the realm of knowledge and the realm of power, a move that would
eventually lead to his demise.22 By encouraging Suleiman the Young to bid for greater
independence from Istanbul, al-Suwaydi was to contribute to the final destruction of
the highly ambitious wali. Yet the controversy surrounding al-Suwaydis career arose
not only from his association with Suleiman the Youngs short-lived drive for independence, but also from widely circulated allegations of his WahhabiSalafi beliefs. Abu
al-Thana
al-Alusi is perhaps the only source we have that denies such allegations,
pointing in support of his argument to his teachers book, al-Iqd al-Thamin, in which
al-Suwaydi adhered to the standard methodology of the traditional ulama institution
rather than the WahhabiSalafi approach.23 Al-Alusi, however, does not indicate
whether al-Iqd al-Thamin was written before or after the allegations of Wahhabism
began to surface against his teacher. In addition, while denying the Wahhabi leanings
of al-Suwaydi, al-Alusi made clear assertions of his teachers Salafi beliefs, drawing
in essence a critical line between salafiyya and wahhabiyya.
The Wahhabi question (and consequently the allegations) is, of course, a serious
one. Since the beginning of the rise of the WahhabiSaudi movement in Najd in the
late 18th century, Iraqi territories were repeatedly attacked by the WahhabiSaudi
forces.24 Although the Ottoman Egyptian army of Muhammad Ali Pasha finally eliminated the WahhabiSaudi danger in 1818, the ideological debate about the Islamic
nature of Wahhabi teachings was still simmering. Whether in Istanbul, seat of the
Ottoman government, or in circles of Islamic learning throughout the empire, the
Wahhabi movement was from the beginning seen as both an ideological and a political
challenge. While the Ottoman authorities were busy dealing with the political and
security threats emanating from the SaudiWahhabi expansion and domination of the
holy cities of the Hijaz, they encouraged loyal ulama to respond to the Wahhabi
theses. As they spoke in the name of Islam, the Wahhabis had to be de-legitimized by
scholars of Islam. In Iraq, therefore, accusations of Wahhabi tendencies were a very
serious matter indeed.
Lines of communication between the Najdi heartland of the wahhabiyya and the
Iraqi urban centers had been always open, not only for bedouin raids but also for the
movement of people, trade, and ideas.25 Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab himself was

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 471

a student in Basra before embarking on his enterprise of Islamic reform.26 Husayn ibn
Ghannam, the early Wahhabi historian and student of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, recorded
a letter that his teacher had sent to the Baghdadi alim Shaykh Abd al-Rahman alSuwaydi (172186) in response to the latters inquiry about the reality of the new
movements teachings.27 Although Ibn Ghannam made no record of the text of alSuwaydis inquiring letter, Ibn Abd al-Wahhabs response was written in a characteristically mild and welcoming tone, an indication of the positive impression that alSuwaydis letter had left on him. It is also evident that the theological and intellectual
debate between successors of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab and the Iraqi ulama continued after
the death of the Wahhabi movements founder.28 Although Shaykh Abd al-Rahman
al-Suwaydi died more than a quarter-century before the death of his nephew Shaykh
Ali al-Suwaydi, the Iraqi ulamaor, at least, a section of them, especially in Baghdad
and Basrawere perhaps the first group of ulama to become aware of the Wahhabi
teachings and goals. It is even tempting to assume that repeated wars and confrontations between the Ottoman authorities in Baghdad and the WahhabiSaudi forces
could not preclude the attraction of a few Baghdadi ulama to the puritan ideal of the
Wahhabi movement.
In his biography of Abd al-Aziz al-Shawi (d. 1803), Uthman ibn Sanad, the Iraqi
chronicler of the late Mamluk period, reported that al-Shawi embraced Wahhabi teachings after spending a time in Najd in an investigatory mission undertaken in 1801 on
behalf of Sulayman Pasha (the elder; r. 17801802), the wali of Baghdad.29 Abd alAziz, an alim and accomplished man of letters, belonged to the ShawiUbaydi clan,
one of the most notable and powerful Arab Sunni tribes of Iraq in the 18th and early
19th centuries. It was against reports of contacts between the Ubaydis and the Wahhabis that the Mamluk governor of Baghdad, Ali Pasha (who should be distinguished
from the later Ottoman governor Ali Pasha), launched an attack on the Ubaydis,
which culminated in the killing of the two brothers Abd al-Aziz and Muhammad alShawi in 1803.30 If Shaykh Ali al-Suwaydi did indeed have Wahhabi leanings, then
he was certainly not an exceptional case.
Mamluk rule of Iraq contributed to the development of a localized sense of identity
for the people of Baghdad and its environs, where a precarious alliance of interests
existed among the Mamluk class, the city notables, and the ulama.31 It was not surprising, therefore, that the citys inhabitants, led by the ulama, sided with Dawud Pasha
(r. 181731), the last Mamluk governor of Baghdad, against forces of the central
Ottoman government, which encircled the city in the early summer of 1831 with the
aim of destroying Mamluk rule. Shaykh Ali al-Suwaydi, whose support of Suleiman
the Youngs political ambitions was acknowledged by Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi, shared
with the wali a vision of political independence from Ottoman control at a time that
Istanbul seemed to have relinquished its responsibility toward the protection and defense of Iraq. The bond that connected the alim and the wali evokedat least, to the
enemies of boththe WahhabiSaudi alliance. If that was the motivation of Ali alSuwaydi, his vision was undoubtedly not shared by many in Baghdad; nor was it
informed of the real balance of power in the Ottoman sultanate or of the capabilities
of the Iraqi Mamluk class, a position that resulted in the final destruction of Suleiman
Pasha the Young and the demise of al-Suwaydi.
By denying Ali al-Suwaydis Wahhabi attitudes, al-Alusi was defending not only

472 Basheer M. Nafi

the reputation of his teacher against what was still regarded as a terrible accusation;
he was also protecting himself from implications of similar measure. Recording his
views of his teacher, as will be shown, in a turbulent time of his career and of his
relations with the Ottoman authorities, al-Alusi was careful not to raise any kind of
doubt about his own loyalty to the sultanate. Al-Alusi, however, could not conceal
the whole truth, and that is why, while denying the Wahhabi attitudes of al-Suwaydi,
he still confirms his adherence to salafiyya. A few decades later, when the Arab Salafi
ulama where becoming more confident of their position, al-Suwaydis salafiyya and
his defense of Ibn Taymiyya, the main source of inspiration for both the Wahhabis of
Najd and the modern Salafis of the Arab urban centers, was celebrated by a Damascene alim of the same school, as well as by Numan al-Alusi, son of Abu al-Thana
.32
But Abu al-Thana al-Alusis attempt to draw a line between wahhabiyya and salafiyya
should not be seen as a mere defense technique employed for political expediency.
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, almost none of the non-Najdi ulama,
influenced by the Wahhabi reformist movement, could totally agree with its teachings
or blindly accept all of its methods and policies. Salafiyya without the spilling of
Muslim blood and free of the Wahhabis extreme theological position would be the
dominant feature of the Islamic reformist circles of Baghdad, Cairo, and Damascus.
The third main figure in the education of Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi was Abu alBaha
Diya
al-Din Khalid al-Shahrazuri, known as Mawlana Khalid al-Naqshbandi
(17761826).33 Born in Qaradagh in the district of Shahrazur in Kurdistan and educated in the traditional ulama circles of Sulaymaniyya, Mawlana Khalid was introduced
to the NaqshbandiyyaMujadidiyya tw arqa in Delhi by successors of Shah Wali-Allah
Dihlawi, led by his son Shah Abd al-Aziz (17461823). Mawlana Khalid played an
instrumental role in spreading the Naqshbandiyya tw arqa in Kurdistan, Istanbul, and the
Arab Mashriq during the early part of the 19th centuryso much so that the tw arqas
line initiated by him would become known as the NaqshbandiyyaKhalidiyya.
There is no dispute in the Naqshbandi writings about the significance of the Indian
journey in the making of Mawlana Khalid and his perception of his mission in life.
The important aspect of his initiation into the Naqshbandiyya is the revivalist phase
into which the tw arqa was passing during the 17th and 18th centuries. In a characteristic shift in the development of taawwuf, Sufi revivalists extended the scope of the
tw arqa from catering to personal piety and world denial to assuming responsibility for
the revival and well-being of society. The Naqshbandiyyas path with which Mawlana
Khalid was connected was first defined by the austere and orthodox vision of Ahmad
Sirhindi (15641624) in response to the syncretic theology of Akbar, the Mughal
emperor of India, and the antinomianism of popular Sufism.34 With Shah Wali-Allah
Dihlawi (170362), NaqshbandiyyaMujaddidiyya (as it came to be known after Sirhindi) would be projected from within a more complex structure of ideas, in which
the Indian revivalist shared central themes with his contemporary Muhammad ibn
Abd al-Wahhab, emanating from their common admiration of Ibn Taymiyya.35 But
even if he held Salafi attitudes, Shah Wali-Allah was not a Wahhabi; nor was he
conscious of the Wahhabi movement. In Shah Wali-Allahs system of thought, the
core Sufi doctrine of wahdat al-wujud was accommodated, and the reformist emphasis
on the supremacy of the primary texts, the Qur
an and hadith, was upheld. By empha-

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 473

sizing the role of the primary texts in reconstructing the faith and the community,
Shah Wali-Allah called for ijtihad.36 The legacy of Wali-Allah dominated the cultural
environment of the Delhi school in the early 19th century, into which Mawlana Khalid
was initiated during his Indian sojourn.
Tasawwuf, however, is a way, not a tightly defined ideology, and the points of
emphasis of a given Sufi tariqa would thus repeatedly be redefined at the hands of
charismatic figures, who appeared at different stages in the development of the tariqa.
Khalid al-Naqshbandi was one of these figures. Although some reports attributed to
him claims of intercession on behalf of the sick, there is general agreement that Mawlana Khalid, like the revivalists of Delhi, sought to bring the tariqa into line with the
high tradition of religion by imploring his followers to observe commands of the
sharia and adhere to the Qur
an and the sunna.37 Theologically, howeverand despite
the widening debate about the Wahhabi movement and evidence of his familiarity
with works of Ibn Qayim al-Jawziyya, the faithful student of Ibn TaymiyyaKhalid
al-Naqshbandi was an Ashari. His commitment to traditional Islamic scholarship is
further shown in his faithfulness to the Shafii madhhab.38 Until the last stage of his
career, he taught works by the eminent Shafiis Ahmad ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Muhammad ibn Ahmad (al-Khatib) al-Shirbini, and Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ramli,39 all of
whom were Ottoman Egyptian non-Salafi scholars with deep roots in the traditional
ulama institution.
Mawlana Khalid began disseminating teachings of the NaqshbandiyyaMujaddidiyya tw arqa, as he saw it, immediately after his return to Sulaymaniyya in 1811. On
instructions from his mentor Abd al-Aziz Dihlawi, he made his first visit to Baghdad
shortly after his arrival in Sulaymaniyya.40 Two years later, plotting by the local circles
of ulama at Sulaymaniyya forced him to move again to Baghdad. Although he was
persuaded to return to Sulaymaniyya by Mahmud al-Baban, the local ruler, his teaching career there finally ended in 1820. Mawlana Khalid left his hometown first for
Baghdad, where he stayed for a few months; then he moved to Damascus, where he
spent the rest of his life.41 But contrary to the trends of social consciousness and
political involvement that characterized the careers of Ahmad Sirhindi and the Delhi
revivalists, Mawlana Khalid, especially during the Syrian years, showed strong aversions to political circles and people of authority.42 This position may have been a
genuine reflection of his understanding of what the Naqshbandiyya tw arqa was about;
it could also be interpreted in light of the troubling circumstances that surrounded
his relations with the rulers of Sulaymaniyya or the religious-political tension that
accompanied the dissolution of the Ottoman janissary corps and the Bektashi tw arqa
connected with them. The influence of Mawlana Khalid, in other words, stemmed
from a message of reconciliation between Sufism and the sharia, advocated by a
powerful and charismatic personality, rather than a radical departure from traditional
Islamic culture and Ashari theology.
Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi, still younger than twenty years of age, met Mawlana Khalid
in Baghdad during one of the eminent Sufis sojourns to the city. Like many other
Baghdad ulama, the young al-Alusi was initiated into the Naqshbandiyya tw arqa by
Mawlana Khalid; with him he also read a text of Islamic theology,43 a strong indication
of Khalids reputation as both a Sufi leader and a scholar. Two decades later, when

474 Basheer M. Nafi

al-Alusi wrote about his teachers and his impressions of them, he would underscore
Mawlana Khalids adherence to the way of Qur
an and the sunna. Although al-Alusi
did not become a senior member of the tw arqa or a main contributor to the dissemination of its teachings, his attachment to the Naqshbandiyya facilitated his entry to the
senior echelons of ulama circles at a time that the Naqshbandiyya was being established rapidly in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere as the tw arqa of the ulama class and of
learned circles.
This highly diversified educational background makes the task of identifying the
real orientations of Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi even more difficult. It was perhaps a rare
occurrence for an Ottoman alim in the early decades of the 19th century to receive
his education at the hands of three prominent and influential scholars who were as
different as the traditionalist al-Musilli, the Salafi al-Suwaydi, and the Sufi revivalist
Khalid al-Naqshbandi. It is not that al-Alusi consciously chose such a complex pattern
of education; rather, the period in which he lived and functioned created this complexity, as the long-held alliance between taawwuf and circles of traditional Islam began
to crack, allowing various currents of reformist Islam to rise to the surface. Like any
erudite traditional Muslim alim of the time, al-Alusi acquired broad learning of the
Ashari-Maturidi theology; Hanafi, Shafii, and Maliki schools of fiqh; al-Bukhari and
Muslim hadith collections, the two major sources of hadith for Sunni ulama; Arabic
linguistic sciences, and Greek logic, as well as the founding texts of taawwuf and
ethics, such as al-Ghazalis Ihya
Ulum al-Din, al-Ansari al-Harawis Manazil alSa
irin, and Ibn Arabis al-Futuhat al-Makkiyya. Yet two significant elements are
clearly visible in the ijazas he granted later in his life to his students and companions.
The first is his imploring of those who would receive his ijazas not to seek knowledge
in sources of logic, philosophy, or extreme Sufism, unless it was vitally necessary;
the second is his underlining of the reformist ulama in the chains of knowledge that
he belonged tonot only Ali al-Suwaydi and Khalid al-Naqshbandi, but also 18thcentury reformists such as the Damascenes Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi and Ismail alAjluni, and the prominent figure of the Madinan circle, Ibrahim ibn Hasan al-Kurani.44
By projecting such an image, al-Alusi attempted to qualify his traditionalist background, the formal education expected and accepted in the Ottoman cultural environment, through a moderate reformist genealogy that would not invite the enmity of his
contemporaries, especially among official ulama and Sufis.
R I S E A N D FA L L O F A B U A L - T H A N A
A L - A L U S I

Until the end of Mamluk power and the restoration of central Ottoman rule in 1831,
al-Alusi held some teaching posts in several mosques and schools but no official
position. Although none of these appointments was regarded as of major importance,
for a young alim in his twenties to reach the rank of teacher was in itself a major
achievement. This recognition, however, would soon take al-Alusi into the first crisis
in his relationship with the Ottoman administration of vilayet Baghdad. Once the
triumphant Ottoman forces entered the city in September 1831, al-Alusi was marked
as a supporter of the defeated Mamluk wali Dawud Pasha and was thus accused of
taking part in organizing resistance to the Ottoman forces during the long siege of

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 475

Baghdad, which preceded the surrender of the Mamluks.45 Because the re-establishment of central Ottoman rule was accompanied by indiscriminate and summary killing
of the Mamluks and their supporters, al-Alusi went into hiding. Only intervention by
the new mufti of the city, Shaykh Abd al-Ghani al-Jamil (17801863),46 would save
him.
Al-Jamil was appointed to the muftiship of Baghdad immediately after Ali Pasha,
the victorious Ottoman commander, was confirmed by Istanbul as the new wali. Before leading the Ottoman expedition to Baghdad, Ali Pasha was a governor of Aleppo,
where he came to know al-Jamil, the Baghdadi alim who was by then living in Syria.
A bureaucrat of the old regime, Ali Pasha was fully aware of the importance of the
walimufti relationship for maintaining security and stability; hence, one of his first
acts as a wali was to recall his friend Shaykh Abd al-Ghani al-Jamil to take control
of the muftiship of Baghdad. Al-Alusi, searching for protection and the normalization
of his life, took refuge in the muftis house. Shortly afterward, using his special relationship with the wali, al-Jamil not only secured the pardoning of al-Alusi but also
his appointment as the amn al-fatwa (first aide to the mufti).47 Al-Alusi was further
granted a teaching position at the Qadiriyya school of the al-Gaylani mosque, a valuable teaching post with a regular income. The speedy recovery of al-Alusis fortune
was a strong indication of how close he became to the new mufti and how appreciative
the mufti was of his young aides abilities. But al-Alusis troubles with the government
were not over. In May 1832, only a few months after the inauguration of the new
administration, the mufti instigated a popular rebellion against the wali, in which
al-Alusi, out of either real conviction or mere loyalty to al-Jamil, became deeply
involved.
The origin of the rebellion was certainly not political, for it began as a reaction to
the killing of a Mamluk woman, who had taken refuge at the muftis house, by the
walis aides. But the mass rallying of the people of Baghdad to the muftis cause
turned the issue into a political matter, illustrating the precariousness of the new order.
Abd al-Aziz Nawwar, the eminent Egyptian historian writing during the heyday of
Arab nationalism, painted al-Jamils rebellion in Arabist colors.48 Nawwar argued that
the rebellion was staged in support of Muhammad Ali and the Egyptian armys advance into Syria, reflecting the Iraqis wish for independence. Nawwar presented no
hard historical evidence to support his case. The people of Baghdad were certainly
more sympathetic to the Mamluks and did support Dawud Pasha against the Ottoman
government forces, but available sources do not mention any positive responses in
Baghdad toward the attempt of the wali of Egypt to expand his domain into Syria,
which was still in its initial stage. Muhammad Ali himself made no proclamation to
the effect that his Syrian campaign was launched to unite the Arab Mashriq and realize
its independence; even if such a perception was to develop, communications were not
yet so effective as to create supportive public opinion in Baghdad. The siding of alAlusi, and the majority of Baghdadis, with the Mamluks against the Ottoman expedition in 1831 cannot be attributed to the existence of Arab nationalist feelings among
the Iraqis of the early 19th century. The Mamluks were no different from the new
Ottoman rulers in terms of their non-Arab ethnic origins; nor did they promote an
Arabist vision, which was not yet in existence, at any rate. It was most likely the

476 Basheer M. Nafi

identification of the Mamluks with local forces and the strong perception of their
belonging to the city that led to the Baghdadis to side with Dawud Pasha against what
appeared to be an invasion by an external army.
In fact, Abd al-Ghani al-Jamil was an old friend of Ali Pashas, and nothing in his
previous career hinted at the existence of secessionist political ambitions. Al-Jamil
was a mufti with a powerful character who believed that his position entitled him to
provide protection to an innocent Mamluk woman; when the sanctity of his home was
breached, he reacted in the best tradition of the city of Baghdad. Responding to the
situation, the wali did not hesitate to employ swift and harsh measures, including
destruction of the muftis residence, to suppress the uprising and restore normality.
Abd al-Ghani al-Jamil fled the city, and al-Alusi again went into hiding.49 On this
occasion, it was his Naqshbandi associates who came to al-Alusis rescue, pleading to
the wali on his behalf. Although his life was saved and he was allowed to keep his
teaching post at the Qadiriyya school, he lost his job at the muftis office, and his
movement and activities were restricted for the next year and half. As for Abd alGhani al-Jamil, a year after the incident, he was allowed to return to Baghdad, but
the walis offers of land grants and other enticements failed to appease the proud alim
or diminish his resentment. Until his death, al-Jamil made no attempt to hide his
condemnation of Ottoman rule, and some of his recorded poetry reflects visible antiTurk sentiments.50
One night in January 1835, Ali Pasha arrived at the Abd al-Qadir al-Gaylani
mosque to attend the usual religious congregation of the holy month of Ramadan.
Either by mere chance or out of premeditation, al-Alusi delivered the sermon of the
night, which deeply impressed the wali.51 This story, relayed by almost all of the Iraqi
annalists of the 19th century, is the standard explanation for the second turn of fortune
that propelled the career of Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi from the days of fear and exclusion
to the highest position any local alim could reach in the Ottoman ulama hierarchy. It
is believed that Ali Pasha, touched by the speech, invited al-Alusi to a private meeting
that proved to be the beginning of a deep and long-lasting friendship between the two.
Sometime later, an insignificant theological disagreement between the wali and the
standing mufti, Muhammad Said al-Tabaqjali, precipitated the dismissal of the latter
and the appointment of al-Alusi in his stead.
There is, of course, an element of legend in this story, in which the power of the
word is made to overwhelm the worldly powera celebration of the righteousness
and the godly derived wisdom of the men of knowledge. The truth had perhaps a
more mundane dimension. Ali Pasha, a ruthless official, highly generous man, and
inefficient administrator, was a typical Ottoman governor who not only held strong
religious feelings but also understood the power of religion and its vital role in the
process of governing. He was granted the vilayet of Baghdad as a reward for his
success in ending Mamluk rule, but the restoration of central authority meant that the
walis fate lay no longer with the local game of power but with the Sublime Porte in
Istanbul. To prove his ability to maintain peace in this turbulent region of the empire
and meet the financial demands made of him by the central government, he definitely
needed the support of an active, trustworthy, and effective mufti who could secure the
loyalty of the ulama institution and command respect from the population. Because

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 477

he did not feel comfortable enough with the mufti al-Tabaqjali, Ali Pasha tried to
reconcile with his old friend Abd al-Ghani al-Jamil. When he failed in this attempt,
he turned to the younger, but not less illustrious or effective, al-Alusi. Al-Alusi himself
did not deny that there was yet another element to the story.
The 1830s were testing times for Istanbul, during which the Ottoman sultanate
faced the unstoppable incursion of Muhammad Alis forces into Syria, European military and economic encroachments, and uncertainty in the modernization project. Consequently, the sultanate had a desperate need to reassert its legitimacy. After his introduction to the wali, al-Alusi was encouraged by Ali Pasha to comment on a book
dealing with Muslims duty to obey their ruler. The book, al-Burhan fi Itaat al-Sultan,
was originally written by a former shaykh al-Islam, Abd al-Wahhab Effendi Yasini
Zadah.52 Al-Alusi added, to the short, original text a detailed and diversified commentary on the legitimacy of the Ottoman sultanate and the Qur
anic duty of all Muslims
to obey the sultan, and a refutation of Shiiimamate political theory. He is also believed to have written a letter to Muhammad ibn Awn, the sharif of Mecca, warning
him against siding with Muhammad Ali and declaring the wali of Egypt a disobedient aggressor, asserting that fighting him would be equivalent to a jihad.53 Despite
the Salafi influences of Shaykh Ali al-Suwaydi and the initial tumultuous episodes in
his relations with the Ottoman authorities, there is certainly no ground to doubt alAlusis loyalty to the Ottoman sultanate or his belief in the legitimacy of its rule. It
is, however, hard to imagine that writing a treatise on Muslims obedience to the
sultan or issuing a fatwa against the wali of Egypt had been on his agenda before his
rapprochement with Ali Pasha. By and large, obedience to the sultan was a genre
of Ottoman writings that flourished in circles of Turkish ulama belonging to the official religious hierarchy, especially those associated with the center of the empire, and
was rarely treated by Arab or provincial, non-official ulama. By identifying with the
sultanates political Islamic goals, he was resorting to the ulama class the best tradition
of compromise, reconciling himself with the new realities of power in Baghdad.
Soon after al-Alusi wrote the commentary and gained the muftiship of Baghdad,
the wali obtained for him the honorary title of teacher of the Asitana from the
government in Istanbul and granted him the guardianship of the Marjan waqf, one of
the most rewarding endowments in the city. This addition to the income to which he
was entitled from his other teaching posts totally transformed al-Alusis life, materially
and otherwise. He bought a large new house, where he would receive and entertain
increasing numbers of disciples, students, and fellow men of letters. A large collection
of poems written in his praise by al-Alusis contemporaries gives a clear indication of
the influence and central position he occupied in the cultural life of Baghdad during
the 1830s and 1840s.54 Finally, by making peace with the Ottoman authorities, he
seemed to have realized his ambitionsand the ambitions of his ancestors. The eminence and prestige that al-Alusi acquired did not, however, come without a price. AlAlusis contribution to the heated debate that engulfed the Ottoman realm over the
legitimacy of Muhammad Ali and his challenge to the state made him effectively an
official spokesman of the vilayet of Baghdad and a recognized figure in Istanbul. In
a highly bureaucratized state, even records of the local muftis were kept by the shaykh
al-Islam (the mufti of Istanbul and head of the religious hierarchy). As long as al-

478 Basheer M. Nafi

Alusi maintained his close relationship with the Ottoman authorities in Baghdad, this
recognition worked in his favor, but once he fell out with the wali, it turned against
him.
The affair of the Iranian questions, which also occurred during the governorship
of Ali Pasha, shows how closely al-Alusi became identified with the state. Al-Alusis
involvement in this matter developed out of a list of questions covering theological,
legal, and other issues of an Islamic nature that the Ottoman authorities in Baghdad
received from a group of Iranian Shii ulama. It is certainly not clear whether the list
of questions was meant to be official and thus required an official response, or whether
it was merely another episode in the long-drawn-out polemics between the Sunni and
the Shii establishments of the two countries. Either way, the OttomanPersian conflict
was not only geopolitical in nature. It also concerned some of the holiest Shii shrines,
as well as a large Shii population, under Ottoman rule. This meant that the Iranian
questions had serious implications for the legitimacy of the Ottoman state and its
control of Iraq. According to al-Alusi and his disciples, none of the ulama to whom
the questions were passed dared to answer them until he volunteered to write the
definitive response.55 Al-Alusis effort was rewarded with a medal from the sultan, a
rare honor to be bestowed on a local alim. A few years after assuming the muftiship
of Baghdad, al-Alusi seems to have become so powerful a figure and so essential for
the walis scheme of things that when, in 1837, Ali Pasha succeeded in suppressing
the autonomous rulers of the emirate of al-Muhammara, on the eastern bank of Shatt
al-Arab, it was to the mufti that he first told the news of his victory in a formal
letter.56
This symbiotic relationship between the mufti and the wali came to an end in 1842,
when Ali Pasha was dismissed from the governorship of Baghdad and replaced with
Muhammad Najib Pasha. The new wali was not an admirer of the mufti; nor did he
welcome his self-confidence or the aura of social influence and power that surrounded
his position. A son of a prominent family from Istanbul and a bureaucrat from the old
guard who saw in the Tanzimat (Ottoman state-sponsored modernization) a mere project of authoritarianism and the imposition of conformity, Najib Pasha sought to undermine al-Alusis position and diminish his status. The proud mufti, now with an established scholarly reputation and a long record of loyalty to the state, was not easy
prey. As relations between the two deteriorated, Najib Pasha made sure that al-Alusis
credentials in Istanbul were wiped out and that he was dismissed at the most convenient and opportune time.
Sometime in 1847, al-Alusi received an invitation from the shaykh al-Islam to attend an imperial party in Istanbul, celebrating the circumcision of Sultan Abd alMajids sons. Although the mufti was willing to accept the invitation, the wali ordered
him to write an apology to the shaykh al-Islam and warned him of severe consequences if he left the city of Baghdad, perhaps fearing that al-Alusis travel to Istanbul
would consolidate his position. According to al-Alusi, the letter of apology he wrote
was passed to Najib Pasha, to be sent to Istanbul through official channels. Instead,
the wali dispatched the letter via the French consulates mail, implying the existence
of suspicious relations between the mufti and the French.57 As OttomanFrench relations were at a low point because of earlier French support of Muhammad Ali Pasha
and the rising influence of Britain in Istanbul, the letter, and the way in which it was

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 479

delivered, had a drastic impact on the shaykh al-Islams view of his mufti in Baghdad.
Whether al-Alusi, who was certainly aware of Najib Pashas strained relations with
the French consulate, really did make approaches to the French in Baghdad hoping to
win their backing against the wali, or whether Najib Pasha concocted the whole episode, is not clear. What is clear, however, is that al-Alusi, in the account of his later
trip to Istanbul and his long meetings with the shaykh al-Islam, never reported the
raising of this issue or defending himself against the accusations of Najib Pasha.58
Although more than three years separated his travel to Istanbul from the confrontation
with Najib Pasha, the absence of the French connection issue from his long exchanges with the shaykh al-Islam should pose some questions as to the reality of alAlusis denial of Najib Pashas allegations.
In the summer of the same year, Najib Pasha faced the first local challenge to his
rule in Baghdad. An angry demonstration began in the popular quarter of Bab alShaykh, and the demonstrators marched to the summer residence of the wali in protest
against Najib Pashas decision to increase taxes levied from the asnaf (artisans). Because Baghdad was just coming out of a plague epidemic, the increase in taxation
was certainly an unwise decision and was bound to spark a popular reaction. But
rather than face his own responsibility for the situation, Najib Pasha accused the mufti
and his friend and student Sayyid Muhammad Amin al-Waiz, the preacher of the Abd
al-Qadir al-Gaylani mosque, of instigating the protest.59 Al-Waiz and one of his brothers were exiled to the southern Iraqi city of Basra, and al-Alusi was dismissed from
the muftiship. Najib Pasha, for his injudicious management of the vilayets affairs,
lost his job in the summer of 1849.60 No investigation was conducted to determine the
muftis responsibility for the events of the summer of 1847, and the removal of Najib
Pasha from the governorship of Baghdad could not be linked to the dismissal of alAlusi, who by then had no defenders in Istanbul to take up his case. And because all
provincial muftis belonged to the religious hierarchy of the sultanate, the dismissal of
al-Alusi was approved by the shaykh al-Islam. For al-Alusi, the consequences of losing the muftiship of Baghdad were heavyat least, financiallybecause he was not
only deprived of his salary as a mufti but was also stripped of the Marjan waqf, a
major source of his income. Almost nothing is known of his attempts to mend his
relations with the government during the rule of Najib Pashas successor, Abd alKarim Nadir Pasha (184951), or of his trying to recover his lost income. But in
March 1851, as a result of severe deterioration in his financial situation, al-Alusi
embarked on his famous overland travel to Istanbul (a detailed account of which he
left in three books), seeking a redress of his case and compensation for his services.61
In Istanbul, where he seems to have been given dignified hospitality and where he
stayed until mid-1852, al-Alusi presented his complaint to Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad
Arif Hikmat (17851858), with whom he seemed to have mended fences,62 and to
the famous modernist Grand Vizier Mustafa Rashid Pasha. Although there is no evidence that al-Alusi had been awarded the Marjan waqf for life by Ali Pasha or that
the waqf by then had been passed to his successor in the muftiship of Baghdad, he
apparently hoped to restore his control of it. However, the ruling of the Ottoman
Supreme Judicial Council, to whose jurisdiction al-Alusis case was finally referred,
granted him a yearly stipend equivalent to half of the Marjan waqfs revenue. He was
also offered the judgeship of the outlying Turkish city of Erzurum, on the assumption

480 Basheer M. Nafi

that he would receive the salary but deputize whomever he wished to do the job. Less
than two years after his return to Baghdad, during which time he struggled against
deteriorating health to finalize his last works, al-Alusi died on 20 August 1854, perhaps as unpleased with his times as he had been when he began his career.
The fall of al-Alusi from the muftiship of Baghdad and the deterioration in his
relations with the Ottoman authorities in the city was a major event in his life. Understanding this eventits causes and its impactcould shed further light on a critical
period in the history of Ottoman Iraq and on the making of a prominent alim who is
still an elusive figure. It has been suggested that al-Alusis crisis may have been due
to the gradual eclipse of the role of the religious establishment in the tanzimat era,
and the Ottoman reformists attempts to decimate the ulamas material base through
the confiscation and diversion of pious foundations.63 A similar explanation had been
made earlier by Abd al-Aziz Nawwar, who went even further by asserting that alAlusi held strong Arabist and anti-Turkish sentiments that were crucial elements in
deepening the enmity between him and Najib Pasha.64 Although both proposals seem
logical, they cannot easily be sustained by hard historical evidence.
The Ottoman Tanzimat was launched in 1839 by Rashid Pasha and his coterie,
which created the impression that the appointment of Muhammad Najib Pasha to the
governorship of vilayet Baghdad two years later was meant to implement measures
of modernization in the unruly province. Seen in totality, the Tanzimat made a considerable leap toward the transformation of the Ottoman state and society, leading to the
centralization of administration and undermining the historical autonomy of old social
organization. By introducing new channels of representation, uniform curricula and
modern schools, and legal codes and modern judicial systems, and by attempting to
create a professional, modern military free of Sufi and religious influences, the Tanzimat weakened the ulamas position and their role in holding the societal nexus and
speaking on behalf of the community.65 The Ottoman modernist statesmen were also
highly interested in maximizing state revenues, for the industrialization of the empire
and for other purposes, and saw in the privatization of land and the states re-acquisition of major religious endowments one way to generate the necessary funds for their
project.66 Yet, the modernization vision of the Tanzimat was not born fully fledged;
rather, it was largely experimental and took more than three decades to unfold. Its
implementation was equally piecemeal and regionally uncoordinated.
In Iraq, the Tanzimat had no tangible impact until the beginning of Midhat Pashas
rule (186972)67; only minor and highly tentative steps were taken in the 1850s, several years after the removal of al-Alusi. One of the main promises of the first Tanzimat
declaration in 1839 was the abolishment of the centuries-old iltizam system, but even
Najib Pasha was appointed to the governorship of Baghdad on the basis of the iltizam
contract of the old regime.68 Although the first administrative council for the province
of Baghdad came into being in March 1851,69 the municipality of Baghdad was not
established until 1868,70 while modern educational and judicial systems were introduced by Midhat Pasha only the following year.71 There is no doubt that the states
attempts to control the public waqf began with Sultan Mahmud II in the late 1820s;
however, these attempts did not take real form in Baghdad or possess the power of
law until the issuing of the regulations for awqaf administration in the provinces in
1863.72 In fact, the Marjan waqf survived until the late 19th century, when Numan

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 481

Khayr al-Din al-Alusi succeeded in a visit to Istanbul in reacquiring it at the order of
Sultan Abdulhamid II.73
This picture of slow and uncertain effort at bringing the Tanzimat vision to mid19th-century Baghdad suggests no direct link between the program of modernization
and the crisis of al-Alusi. The ruthless reassertion of government authority in the city
of Karbala by Najib Pasha in December 1842; the war against the SaudiWahhabi
movement; the destruction of Mamluk rule in Baghdad; and the termination of the
Jalalis autonomy in Mosul in 1834 and of the amirs of al-Muhammara three years
later were no doubt manifestations of Ottoman attempts to re-establish the territorial
integrity of the empire. But while al-Alusis relations with the Ottoman centralized
regime survived until the end of the 1840s, the Baghdad of Najib Pasha was still
largely a city of the pre-modern times, ruled by an authoritarian wali who, though he
seems to have been a good administrator, was described by Ahmad Lutfi, the late
Ottoman official historian, as an oppressive wali, a reactionary whose rule resulted
in no benefits for the state or the people of Iraq.74
Najib Pashas intolerance of the power and influence of the mufti was combined
with a desire to eclipse symbols of his predecessors long rule, of which al-Alusi was
the most prominent, and stamp his own imprints on affairs of the vilayet. In addition,
Najib Pasha was a Qadiri Sufi at a time in which relations between the al-Alusis and
the Gaylanis, whose head was traditionally the naqib al-ashraf and leader of the Qadiriyya tw arqa in Baghdad, were characterized by antagonism and hostility.75 In contrast
to Ali Pasha, Najib Pasha was closely attached to the naqib al-ashraf, Sayyid Ali alGaylani, affirming his commitment to the Qadiriyya by organizing the large waqf of
the Abd al-Qadir al-Gaylani mosque for the benefit of the al-Gaylani family. Until
the spectacular success of Mawlana Khalid in spreading the Naqshbandiyya tw arqa in
Baghdad, with which al-Alusi was identified, the Qadiriyya was the most powerful
Sufi brotherhood in the city and among the Iraqi Sunnis at large. The Naqshbandiyya
tw arqa represented a threat to the traditional dominance of the Qadiriyya, and those
among the Naqshbandi ulama who expressed Salafi attitudes and criticized popular
taawwuf were the most threatening. Not surprisingly, it was not only al-Alusi who
suffered from the alliance of the wali with the Gaylanis but also his friend, student,
and fellow Salafi, Sayyid Amin al-Waiz, preacher of the very mosque of Abd alQadir al-Gaylani.
Hence, to explain al-Alusis crisis in terms of his Arab nationalist attitudes is to
reverse the order of things, for it was most likely the outcome of al-Alusis downfall
that led to nourishing his Arabist tendencies. And it was here that the Tanzimat played
a crucial, though indirect, role. As has already been argued, Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi
of the early 1830s was certainly not an Arabist in the nationalist sense of the term,
and his loyalty to the Ottoman sultanate during the following years should not be in
doubt. But his profoundand, one might say, arrogantbelief in his abilities and
scholarly qualifications, contrasted with the abrupt manner of his dismissal, engendered in him a strong feeling of resentment. Al-Alusis resentment was first directed
at his own opponents and enemies in the religious circles of Baghdad, together with
the wali. Later, as he was forced to make the arduous journey to Istanbul, the objects
of his resentment multiplied. In the pre-Tanzimat world, his problem would have been
resolved in Baghdad, where the power of the word and personal relations still mat-

482 Basheer M. Nafi

tered. The centralized regime of the Tanzimat, which reasserted the position of Istanbul, made the quest for justice a difficult task for a provincial alim and underlined the
remoteness of the ruler from the ruled.76 From the perspective of the Baghdadi alim,
Istanbul of the mid-19th century appeared both physically and culturally remote. Reflecting his belief in the power of the word, which verged on the point of obsession,77
he took with him a copy of his recently completed exegesis of the Qur
an, the ultimate
word that any alim could achieve, to pave his way into the higher circles of the
state. But the new men in Istanbul belonged to a world that was not his, and the new
codes of law, according to which his case was decided, were abstract and devoid of
personal values and appreciation of the word.
Resentment and marginalization, reinforced by a heightened belief in his own self,
gave rise to a sense of difference, alienation, and rediscovered identity. If the Ottoman
sultanate was about Islam and the guarding of the faith, it was the Arab ulama (and
himself in the first place), not their privileged Turkish counterparts, who understood
the original text and who were better equipped to dive into the oceans of its intricacy.
Throughout the account of his travel to Istanbul, al-Alusi would highlight the ignorance of the Turkish ulama he encountered and the worthlessness of their ijazas and
chains of authority as compared with the ijazas of the Arab ulama, placing elements of
language and ethnicity at the heart of his assessment.78 Even the deservedly admirable
erudition of the shaykh al-Islam was attributed to his long association with Arab
ulama. Although al-Alusi gradually warmed to the shaykh al-Islam and came to write
a flattering biography of him, he could never portray him in terms as affectionate and
precious as those he used to describe his own students and disciples in Baghdad. In
Istanbul, though still identifying himself as a Naqshbandi, al-Alusi mocked shaykhs
of the popular taawwuf who enjoyed the comfort of the capitals madrasas and khaniqahs and occupied the center of its religious life, while implicitly and explicitly underscoring the pervasive corruption of the state and the divisive nature of its mens interrelationships. When he was invited, with genuine insistence, to stay in Istanbul, he
could hardly hide the feeling that it was to Baghdad that he belonged. It is here, in
the last few years of al-Alusis life and in the last of his writings, that Arabist expressions would become visibleand here, too, that one may find some answers to the
reality of his theological convictions.
E X E G E T I S T O F T H E Q U R
A N

In the introduction to his exegesis of the Qur
an, Ruh al-Maani fi Tafsir al-Qur
an alAzim wal-Sab al-Mathani,79 al-Alusi outlined the methodology he intended to follow
in projecting his understanding of the Qur
anic text. He first mentioned the basic tools
necessary for the interpreter of the Qur
an, including knowledge of the Arabic language, the occasions on which various verses were revealed, the correctly transmitted
sayings of the Prophet and his companions related to the meaning of Qur
anic verses,
and the science of Qur
anic readingstools beyond which a Salafi interpreter would
rarely venture. Al-Alusi then moved to uphold the traditionalist method of interpretation by ra
i (the interpreters independent, informed opinion) and accept the validity
of Sufi interpretation. When he delved into the old debate about the nature of the
Qur
anic text, he rejected the Mutazili doctrine of the Qur
an as the creation of God

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 483

and advocated the HanbaliAshari view of the Qur
an as the word of God, supporting
his position, nevertheless, with arguments derived mainly from Ashari sources.80 The
difference here is critical, for only the Hanbali argument is deemed valid by proponents of the Salafi theology, despite the HanbaliAshari agreement on the principle.
In fact, al-Alusis complex and broadly scoped introduction to his magnum opus sends
signals that are as mixed and intricate as his own life. Later Arab students of modern
salafiyya saw in Ruh al-Maani a tafsir that upheld the principles of salafiyya,81 while
Muhammad Husayn al-Dhahabi, the late shaykh al-Azhar, in his comprehensive study
of the history and schools of tafsir, placed al-Alusis work under the category of tafsr
by ra
i.82 And although Muhammad Bahjat al-Athari, the Iraqi Salafi scholar, accepted
that Ruh al-Maani was a tafsir based on three approachesthe Salafi, the Sufi, and
the theologians ra
ihe raised some doubts about the clarity of its Salafi content.83
The ra
i, Salafi, and Sufi interpretative approaches constituted the three major
schools of Qur
anic tafsr until the mid-19th century.84 Tafsr by ra
i, which flourished
in Ashari and other Muslim theological circles, implies a greater role for reason in
understanding the Qur
anic text. In reality, yielding to the conservative currents that
dominated Sunni Islam during the middle Islamic period, tafsr by ra
i turned into an
imitative exercise in which theological opinions of the Ashari school were reproduced
in a more dogmatic and largely convoluted manner. One of the main pursuits of traditionalist Islamic circles, ra
i (or theological dogma) gradually became an aim in itself,
eclipsing the Qur
anic text in relation to which the whole tafsr discourse is legitimated. Indeed, in most of tafsr-by-ra
i works, the Qur
anic text was employed as a
vehicle to advocate previously conceived theological opinions. It was against this
development that Ibn Taymiyya and his students, such as Ibn Kathir, reacted by reestablishing tafsr on the primacy of the text, avoiding the distractive theological treatment of the Qur
an and adhering to the lucid and directly formulated Salafi concepts
of the nature of the Qur
an, the attributes of God, and mans responsibility for his
acts. Al-Alusis ambition, it seems, was to achieve the unprecedented not only by
combining Salafi and Ashari theological methodologies but also by incorporating the
Sufi approach of searching for the hidden, intrinsic meaning.
Ruh al-Maani is a massive project that took al-Alusi more than fifteen years to
complete, concluding in February 1851, only one month before he embarked on his
desperate journey to Istanbul.85 The writing of a substantial part of al-Alusis work,
therefore, was the product of his heyday in office as the official Hanafi mufti of
Baghdad, a period during which al-Alusi was enjoying a close relationship with the
wali and was keen to display a firm commitment to the sultanates political and ideological goals. Of the thirty-volume work, the last third was most likely written after
his dismissal in 1847. This assumption is validated by the gradual but fundamental
change in the discursive underpinnings of Ruh al-Maani. Overall, al-Alusis work is
undoubtedly an unsuccessful undertaking to compile a comprehensive Qur
anic tafsr
that integrates the Sufi, ra
i, and Salafi approaches to the text. However, the spirit and
emphasis in which the last few volumes were written are different from those of the
earlier parts of the work. In the first parts of his tafsr, al-Alusi was rather a closet
Salafi walking a tight path between his own convictions and the demands of his
official position; toward the final volumes the Salafi alim in him would become freer
and more visible. Al-Alusi opened his work by declaring himself a re-born Hanafi,

484 Basheer M. Nafi

renouncing his Shafii background and defending Ashari theology and the validity of
the Sufi interpretation.86 Arguing in support of tafsr by ra
i, he wrote:
Those who believe that tafsr by ra
i is not permissible refer to a Prophetic hadith, relayed by
Abu Dawud, al-Tirmidhi, and al-Nisa
i, which says, He who spoke of the Qur
an with his own
opinion, even if he was correct, is mistaken. Another hadith, relayed by Abu Dawud, states,
He who spoke of the Qur
an without knowledge, is to be seated in the hellfire. Both [hadiths]
furnish no evidence [to uphold the case of opponents of ra
i]. Firstly for the doubts about the
authenticity of the first hadith . . . as for the second hadith, it carries two meanings: first, he
who attempts to interpret the problematic [ambiguous] verses of the Qur
an without [proper]
knowledge is to be subjected to the wrath of God; the second meaning is that he who expressed
an opinion about the Qur
an while he knew that the right view lays elsewhere is to anticipate
the punishment of God. Secondly, for the evidence supporting the permissibility of ra
i and
ijtihad in the Qur
an are numerous.87

Neither ra
i nor ijtihad is used casually or in general terms here, because al-Alusis
specific projection of ra
i is illustrated by numerous other instances, including his
praise of al-Razi, the last of the great Asharis, whose Qur
anic tafsr was the embodiment of theological ra
i and philosophy,88 and his approving incorporation of Ibn
Arabis mystical venture into the employment of numbers and letters in understanding
the text and the universe and his unorthodox re-interpretation of the Qur
anic story of
Moses and Pharaoh as the story of mans struggle against his own evil self and the
seductions of this world. Further, in an unjustified contextual diversion, al-Alusi
launched a rhetorical attack on Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn al-Qayim, and other eminent Hanbali scholars of the middle Islamic period.89 In other words, the early parts of Ruh alMaani reflect a defined position, intent, on the part of al-Alusi to identify with traditionalist Islamic circles of the Ottoman religious hierarchy where the Hanafi school
of fiqh and Ashari theology were the norm. Yet even here, al-Alusis discourse could
not conceal his inner struggle and tension. For instance, he made sure that his acceptance of Sufi methodology should not be understood as an acceptance of extreme
taawwuf (batw iniyya), where symbolic interpretation of Islamic tenets led to the denial
of sharia and its obligations.90 And once he established his Ashari credentials, he then
returned to affirm his commitment to the late doctrine of Abu al-Hasan al-Ashari as
expressed in his book al-Ibana,91 in which al-Ashari reconciled himself with Hanbali
and Salafi theology. Realizing how far he had gone in diluting his Salafi orientation,
al-Alusi carefully and elusively sought to qualify the Ashari and Sufi dimensions of
his work. He would thus write:
You should also be informed that many people regarded the attributes [of God], such as His
ascendance [to the throne], hand, foot, descent to the lower heaven, laugh, wonder and the likes,
as unexplainable issues. The Salafis doctrine, and al-Ashari, God bless his soul, is among their
notables, states in his al-Ibana that although they are all affirmed attributes they lay beyond
[the capacity of] reason; we are required to believe in them but not to conceive of God in terms
of mans attribute, in order not to put reason in opposition to reason.92

Gradually, however, al-Alusis Salafi commitments would become more forceful,

and he seemed to begin giving up on his ambition, or his expedient pursuit, to reconcile the irreconcilable. While in the first parts of his work al-Alusi incorporated Sufi
opinions into the mainstream of his tafsr, in later parts he placed them in a separate

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 485

section at the end of each chapter,93 implying their unrelatedness and foreignness. In
the last two volumes of Ruh al-Maani, his discourse became almost completely free
of Sufi references. After launching an apologetic attempt to disociate the two great
Sufis, Ibn Arabi and Abd al-Qadir al-Gaylani, from the widely circulated anti-orthodox Sufi notion of elevating saints to a status higher than that of the Prophets,94 he
would become unequivocally assertive in his rejection of Ibn Arabis and other Sufi
opinions that rested on the belief in wahdat al-wujud and dismiss hadiths of Sufi
origins in favor of the orthodox views of the scholars of hadith.95 Free of the political
and ideological constraints of office, al-Alusi would no longer fear identifying with
the major figures of the Salafi school of thought. Ibn al-Qayims concept of the
soul, as suggested in his book on the subject, was upheld against the views of even
the grandest of all Asharis, Abu Hamid al-Ghazali,96 while the usual Salafi description
of Ibn Taymiyya as Shaykh al-Islam would first be mentioned with a degree of
reservation, then used freely and unreservedly.97 Added to the fundamental differences,
in form as well as in substance, between Ruh al-Maani and al-Razis Mafatih alGhayb, al-Alusis specific responses to many of al-Razis views make the case of
those who identified al-Alusis work with that of al-Razi unsustainable.98 But nothing
could illustrate al-Alusis profound commitment to the Salafi perspective of Islam
better than his discussion of the principal theological issues, which defined the contours of salafiyya in the first place.
Beyond the displays of linguistic dexterity, beyond the distractive insertions of Sufi
commentary, and beyond the not always vitally required references to wide-ranging
sources and opinions of Islamic heritage, al-Alusis Ruh al-Maani is a powerful defense of Salafi theological doctrine at a time that traditionalist Ashari theology was
still dominant. For al-Alusi, attributes of God are His and should neither be allegorically re-interpreted nor understood in this-worldly terms, for His transcendence defies
the wildest imagination of man. Gods power is infinite; His will is absolute, and He
is the creator of all things. But God also created in man the faculty of choice that
makes his responsibility for his acts undisputable.99 It was here in the irrepressible
Salafi determination to delineate mans position and limits that one of the main elements of salafiyyas inevitable confrontation with traditional Islam and tasawwuf lay.
Al-Alusi (as any Sunni alim was expected to do) spared no occasion to attack the
Mutazilis and ridicule their views; yet his concept of man and free will, like that of
Ibn Taymiyya before him, was closer to the Mutazili doctrine than to that of the
Asharis. In fact, one of the sharpest arguments that al-Alusi formulated was his refutation of the Ashari notion of kasb (acquisition) and its dogmatic denial of causation in
natural phenomena.100 His disociation from Ashari theological doctrine culminated in
his recognition of the Salafi position that Gods acts and injunctions can be rationalized (talil). In this he not only declared his disagreement with one of the fundamentals
of Ashari theology; he also advanced his view as an extension of the view of Ibn alQayim, the most eminent of all of Ibn Taymiyyas students. The Ashari doctrine, alAlusi pointed out,
states that Gods acts are not to be linked to the purposes [of God] . . . the Salafis, like Ibn alQayim and others, stressed that acts of God could be rationally explained. . . . [In fact], rationalization [of Gods acts] exists in more than ten thousand Qur
anic references and hadiths, any
attempt to re-interpret them all in a different light is a deviation from fairness.101

486 Basheer M. Nafi

Al-Alusis rupture with the Ashari schoolas well as with its vehicle, traditionalist
Islamwas further expressed by his assertion that the four fiqhi madhhabs of Sunni
Islam reflected neither an eternal nor an obligatory order, and that the fulfillment of
faith can be achieved from within as well as from without the madhhabi system.102 In
this he was no longer a Hanafi, or even a Shafii, in the literal sense; he was becoming
a Salafi.
The ideal that is invoked by al-Alusi is that of the early centuries of the Islamic
venture, the ideal that was embodied (or believed by Ibn Taymiyya and his followers
to have been embodied) in companions of the Prophet, their followers, and disciples
of the followers. By fusing their ideas with the glorious period of Islam, later Salafis
in the Arab-speaking regions of the Ottoman Empire equipped their intellectual enterprise with a political dimension and laid the foundations for turning salafiyya into an
oppositional force to the Ottoman status quo. Only the Saudi state, which was seen
as the guardian of salafiyya, received their approval. There is no evidence to suggest
that al-Alusis embrace of this powerful rationalist and austere worldview was a response to the impact of modernization and the Western challenge, for al-Alusis world
was still a world on the eve of modernity, to use Abraham Marcuss term.103 In the
pre-modern mode, demarcations between the conventional and the subversive were
distinctively marked; after struggling for a long time to blur these demarcations, alAlusi stepped to the side of the subversive. The implications of Salafi theology for
the next generation of Arab ulama were certainly evident. Salafiyya, as Commins has
proposed, offered the only Islamic route for the ulama class to free themselves from
the shackles of the past and construct an Islamic discourse that was both relevant to
modern times and able to withstand the blowing winds of change.
CONCLUSION

The emergence of the WahhabiSaudi movement, carrying the banners of the Salafi
doctrine, as a violent and secessionist insurrection in the late 18th and early 19th
centuries created a historical anomaly that has complicated our understanding of the
modern history of the Salafi school of thought. Violence and secession related more
to the tribal and political ambitions of the WahhabiSaudi alliance than to inherent
characteristics of salafiyya or the dynamics of its recovery from the dominance of
tasawwuf and Ashari theology that occasioned the long period of decline. In other
words, the development of modern salafiyya in the late 19th century, as represented
by Muhammad Abduh, Numan Khayr al-Din al-Alusi, Rashid Rida, and many others,
was in fact the outcome of a slow, long, and convoluted process. Al-Alusi was one of
a series of transitional figures in this process. He was transitional in the sense that he
could never formulate his Salafi views in a full-fledged and exclusive manner, or
present a coherent case for his choice. His Salafi discourse was largely embedded in
and intertwined with other discourses. It is true that, as he grew older, he became
more explicit in expressing a Salafi viewpoint, but one has the impression that he was
no longer prepared to make a stand, and his writings were instead meant to be a
testimony to posterity and to fulfill his search for self-emancipation. Yet one should
in no way doubt the strength of his Salafi convictions, not only because they represented his last words, but also because he was an alim with versatile erudition, an

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 487

alim who knew Islamic traditions and the mannerism of these traditions. His choice
was, therefore, an informed and deliberate choice, though he was not always able to
make it appear as such.
Al-Alusi was also the product of a deeply established Sunni belief in the ultimate
precedence of communal unity and stability over inner dissent and conflict, regardless
of the side on which righteousness might lie. A main reason behind al-Alusis earlier
suppression of his Salafi attitudes was certainly the hostile reaction elicited by the
violent expansion of the WahhabiSaudi movement in the Arabian Peninsula. But he
was also a believer in the Ottoman sultanate and its well-being. Only the experience
of his fall from the muftiship, his deep sense of injustice, and the suddenness with
which the Ottoman centralization confronted him and deepened his grievances would
shake this belief and arouse his Arabist feelings. His career, nevertheless, equally
reflected the tense game of power that shaped the relationship between the ulama
class and the Ottoman rulers, even before the impact of the modernization program
began to be felt. One of the main features of the readjustment of local ulama in the
Arab urban centers to Ottoman rule was their attainment of the post of mufti in the
18th century and their success in preserving it within their domain.104 Though a testimony to the resilience of the ulama class, this major achievement conversely exposed
a significant section of the local ulama to the bearings of power and its constantly
changing climate. A career in the Ottoman religious hierarchy therefore would hinge
not only on piety and erudition but also on influence and access to men of power.
Al-Alusi had a blueprint neither for his career nor for his exegesis of the Qur
an
when he set out to write it. A monumental project by any standard, Ruh al-Maani,
like its author, was also subject to the unpredictability of the ulamastate relationship
and should thus raise some vital questions about the validity of reading the genre of
tafsir without considering its socio-political context. It is evident that al-Alusi was
influenced by Salafi ideas much earlier in his life, but it was not until his political
and social outlook was disrupted that his Salafi attitudes would be clearly expressed.
In this sense, salafiyya provided a vehicle for the ulamatic oppositional discourse in
the late Ottoman period. The object of this opposition was both the circles of power
and the ruling forces and the locally entrenched Sufi tw arqas and popular taawwuf.
Al-Alusis disenchantment with taawwuf was grounded, perhaps, not only in Salafi
theological beliefs but also in the competition for social and political interests. In a
revealing outburst in a later part of Ruh al-Maani, al-Alusi launches a ferocious attack
on the Sufis who give their loyalty to the oppressors, and even to those who have no
relationship to religion, and support them by falsehood and injustice.105 Although this
outburst alludes to the role played by some Baghdadi Sufi shaykhs in al-Alusis downfall, it also signifies the beginning of the Salafi ulamas confrontation with the Sufi
state alliance. The connivance of Sufi tariqas with the state, and the rising power of
the state in determining who among the ulama would be granted position and influence and who would be deprived, would set the scene for the emergence of modern
salafiyya and its oppositional discourse.
It is much easier perhaps to pinpoint the fundamental theological differences that
separate salafiyya from taawwuf; in reality, al-Alusi, like many other reformist ulama
in the 18th and 19th centuries, was equally an alim whose education was imbued with
Sufi culture. Except in the case of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, who, as Albert Hourani has

488 Basheer M. Nafi

pointed out,106 took Ibn Taymiyyas teachings to extreme, reformists of the 18th and
19th centuries had to negotiate their way in a Sufi-dominated environment to which
they belonged and of which they were critical at the same time. In this respect, alAlusi was no different from Shah Wali-Allah, whose belief in wahdat al-wujud did
not stop him from writing a treatise on the virtues of Ibn Taymiyya and embracing a
range of his ideas. Assuming that Sufi and Salafi attitudes were always mutually
exclusive is to assume that cultural artifacts can be frozen in history. Al-Alusi was no
Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, of course, but neither could he be regarded as a traditional Sufi
and Ashari alim. Nor was his case of overlapping attitudes the end of the evolution
of Salafi theology, for Salafi themes and ideas would continue to be appropriated,
negotiated, and developed. By the end of the 19th century, the salafiyya of Muhammad
Abduh and Rashid Rida, as well as other reformist ulama in Damascus, Baghdad, and
elsewhere in the Muslim world, would acquire a new dimension by responding to
Western cultural challenges.

NOTES

Authors note: I am deeply grateful to Y. Michot, I. Abu Rabi, S. Taji-Farouki, M. Badawi, the editor
of IJMES, and the anonymous IJMES reviewers for reading and commenting on an earlier version of this
article.
1
Muhammad Rashid Rida, al-Wahhabiyyun wal-Hijaz (Cairo: Matbaat al-Manar, 192526); idem, alManar wal-Azhar (Cairo: Matbaat al-Manar, A.H. 1353); Numan Khayr al-Din al-Alusi, Jala
al-Aynayin
fi-Muhakamat al-Ahmadayn (Cairo: Matbaat al-Madani, 1981); Husayn ibn Ghannam, Tarikh Najd, ed.
Nasir al-Din al-Asad (Beirut: Dar al-Shuruq, 1985), esp. 36382.
2
David D. Commins, Islamic Reform: Politics and Social Change in Late Ottoman Syria (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1990), 25. See also H. A. R. Gibb, Modern Trends in Islam (Chicago: Chicago
University Press, 1947), 3435; Albert Hourani, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age: 17981939 (London:
Oxford University Press, 1962), 37, 92, 148, 222, 22526, 231, 233, 344. Cf. John L. Esposito, ed., The
Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), s.v. Salafiyah (Emad Eldin Shahin), 3:46369.
3
For elaborate discussion of the life and works of Ibn Taymiyya, see Henri Laoust, Essai sur le doctrines
sociales et politiques de Taki-d-Din ibn Taimiya (Cairo: Institut Francais dArcheologie, 1939); Muhammad
Abu Zahra, Ibn Taymiyya: Haiyatuh wa Asruh, Ara
uh wa Fiqhuh (Cairo: Dar al-Fikr al-Arabi, 1991).
4
Abu Zahra, Ibn Taymiyya, 18485.
5
On Ibn Taymiyyas students perceptions of him and his vision of Islam, see Muhammad ibn Abd alHadi, al-Uqud al-Durriyya min Manaqib Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad ibn Taymiyya, ed. M. A. al-Fiqi (Cairo:
Matbaat Hijazi, 1938), 7172, 8788, 117; Mari ibn Yusuf al-Karmi, al-Kawakib al-Durriyya fi Manaqib
al-Mujtahid Ibn Taymiyya, ed. N. Khalaf (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1986), 63, 102103, 11720,
125; Abu al-Fida
ibn Kathir, al-Bidaya wal-Nihaya (Beirut: Maktabat al-Maarif, 1967), 13:225, 241, 303,
333, 341, 344, 14:13540; Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Dhahabi, Tadhkirat al-Huffaz (Beirut: Dar Ihiya alTurath, n. d.), 4:1469; Muhammad ibn Qayim al-Jawziyya, Alam al-Mwaqiin an Rab al-Alamin (Cairo:
Dar al-Hadith, n. d.), 1:328; Ahmad ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, al-Durar al-Kamina fi Ayan al-Ma
a alThamina, ed. M. Jad al-Haq (Cairo: Umm al-Qura lil-Tibaa, n. d.), 1:15470; Muhammad ibn Nasir alDin al-Dimashqi, al-Rad al-Wafir ala man Zaam bi-An man Samma Ibn Taymiyya Shaykh al-Islam Kafir,
ed. Zuhayr al-Shawish (Beirut: al-Maktab al-Islami, 1991).
6
On Ibrahim al-Kuranis defense of Ibn Taymiyya, see al-Alusi (Numan), Jala
al-Aynayin, 29, 55. On
Muhammad Murtada al-Zabidis view of Taymiyya, see his Ithaf al-Sada al-Muttaqin bi-Sharh Asrar Ihiya

Ulum al-Din, ed. R. Abd al-Hadi (Beirut: Dar Ihiya
al-Turath al-Arabi, 1995), 1:28, 40, 170, 176, 180,
183, 400, 449, 455; ibid., 2:106, 177; ibid., 3:90, 99, 131, 48182; ibid., 4:416, 531, 53739; ibid., 5:322,
379, 369, 420. On Shah Wali-Allah al-Dihlawis views, see J. M. S. Baljon, Religion and Thought of Shah
Wali Allah Dehlawi (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1986), 148, 200201. On Muhammad ibn Ali al-Shawkanis view,

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 489

see his al-Badr al-Tali bi-Mahasin man Bad al-Qarn al-Sabi (Cairo: Matbaat al-Saada, A.H. 1348), 1:
6372.
7
I am indebted to John O. Voll for suggesting the overlapping of Sufi and Salafi attitudes within Islamic
reformist circles of the 18th century. See, for example, John O. Voll, Hadith Scholars and Tariqas: An
Ulama Group in the 18th Century Haramayn and Their Impact in the Islamic World, Journal of Asian
and African Studies 15 (1980): 26473; idem, Muhammad Hayya al-Sindi and Muhammad ibn Abd alWahhab: An Analysis of an Intellectual Group in Eighteenth Century Madina, Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies 38 (1974): 3239; idem, Linking Groups in the Networks of EighteenthCentury Revivalist Scholars: The Mizjaji Family in Yemen, in Eighteenth-Century Renewal and Reform
in Islam, ed. N. Levtzion and J. Voll (New York: Syracuse University Press, 1987), 6992. The counterargument has been made by Ahmad Dallal, The Origins and Objectives of Islamic Revivalist Thought,
17501850, Journal of the American Oriental Society 113 (1993): 34159; and R. S. OFahey and Bernd
Radtke, Neo-Sufism Reconsidered, Der Islam 70 (1993): 5287. Yet even Ibn Taymiyya and his student
Ibn al-Qayim did not reject tasawwuf in total; their rejection was of the excesses of tasawwuf and of its
pantheistic principle of wahdat al-wujud. They both expressed powerful Sufi attitudes. For a penetrating
discussion of the relationship between taawwuf and Hanbalism in a classical Hanbali context, see George
Makdisi, Hanbalite Islam, in Studies on Islam, ed. Martin L. Swartz (New York: Oxford University Pres,
1981), 24051. Closer to al-Alusis times, the Egyptian Abd al-Wahhab al-Sharani was a Sufi, faqih, and
scholar of hadith, with reformist and, one might say, Salafi tendencies. On him, see Michael Winter, Society
and Religion in Early Ottoman Egypt: Studies in the Writings of Abd al-Wahhab al-Sharani (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Books, 1982).
8
Makdisi, Hanbalite Islam, 21674. The quote is on p. 264, and Makdisis elaborate discussion of
Muslim Orthodoxy is on pp. 25164 and on 22428. For I. Goldzihers discussion of the Hanbali theology, see his Zur Geschichte der haubalitschen Bewegungen, Zeitschrift der Deutschen morgenlandischen
Gesellschaft 62 (1908): 128.
9
The most elaborate discussion of tradition from the perspective of social sciences is still Edward Shils,
Tradition (London: Faber and Faber, 1981). For a similar use in the specific context of Islamic cultural
history, see Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Traditional Islam in the Modern World (London: KPI, 1987); William
A. Graham, Traditionalism in Islam: An Essay in Interpretation, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 23
(1993): 495522.
10
Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1978), 1:xxii. For a detailed and critical discussion of Skinners methodology, see James Tully, ed.,
Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988).
11
Sources of his biography include Abd al-Hayi ibn Abd al-Kabir al-Kittani, Fihris al-Faharis wa Majam al-Maajim wal-Mashiyakhat wal-Musalsalat, ed. Ihsan Abbas (Beirut: Dar al-Gharb al-Islami, 1982),
1:13941; Abbas al-Azzawi, Dhikra Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi (Baghdad: Sharikat Tijara wal-Tibaa, 1958);
al-Alusi (Numan), Jala
al-Aynayin, 5759; Muhammad Bahjat al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq (Cairo: al-Matbaa
al-Salafiyya, 192627), 2143. Brief biographical accounts are included in Khayr al-Din al-Zirikli, alAlam (Beirut: Dar al-Ilm lil-Malayin, 1989), 8:53; Umar Rida Kahhala, Mujam al-Mu
alifin (Beirut: Dar
Ihiya al-Turath, 1957), 12:175; Commins, Islamic Reform, 24.
12
Al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 78.
13
Another family of ulama that appears to have lost rights to their land possessions during the same
period was the Haydaris. On this issue, see Ibrahim Fasih al-Haydari, Unwan al-Majd fi Bayan Ahwal
Baghdad wal-Basra wa Najd (London: Dar al-Hikma, 1998), 14849.
14
A similar case was that of Shaykh Ismail al-Nabulsi, father of the prominent Damascene Sufi reformist
Shaykh Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi. See Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, al-Haqiqa wal-Majaz fi Rihlat Bilad alSham wa Misr wal-Hijaz ed. Riyad Abd al-Hamid Murad (Damascus: Dar al-Marifa, 1989), 4950.
15
Abu al-Thana
Mahmud al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab wa Nuzhat al-Albab fi al-Dhihab wal-Iqama
wal-Iyab, ms. Institute of Arab Manuscripts, Arab League, Cairo (n.d.), pl. 11.
16
Abbas al-Azawi, Tarikh al-Iraq bayn Ihtilalayn (Baghdad: Sharikat al-Tijara wal-Tibaa, 195155),
6:33334.
17
Al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 4.
18
On al-Musilli, see al-Kittani, Fihris al-Faharis, 2:78788. On the Mizjajis, see Voll, Linking Groups,
6992. On the grand Kuzbari, see al-Kittani, Fihris al-Faharis, 1:48485.

490 Basheer M. Nafi

Al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 5; Khalil Mardam-Bec, Alam al-Qarn al-Thalith Ashar fi al-Fikr
wal-Siyasa wal-Ijtima (Beirut: Lajnat al-Turath al-Arabi, 1971), 17073.
20
Al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 910; Muhammad Bahjat al-Athari, Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi wa
Ara
wh al-Lughawiyya (Cairo: Mahad al-Dirasat al-Arabiyya, 1985), 30.
21
Al-Kittani, Fihris al-Faharis, 2:100810. On al-Zabidi, al-Sindi, and al-Basri and their position in the
18th-century reformist environment, see Voll, Muhammad Hayya al-Sindi, 3239. For a detailed discussion of al-Zabidis role in the revival of hadith scholarship in 18th-century Cairo, see Peter Gran, Islamic
Roots of Capitalism: Egypt, 17601840 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1979), 4956.
22
Al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 8; Mardam-Bec, Alam al-Qarn al-Thalith Ashar, 165; Ahmad
Taymur, Alam al-Fikr al-Islami fi al-Asr al-Hadith (Cairo: Lajnat Nashr al-Mu
allafat al-Taymuriyya,
1967), 322.
23
Al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 9. Not only shaykh Ali al-Suwaydi but also the wali Suleiman
Pasha was accused of harboring Wahhabi attitudes. On Suleiman Pasha the Young and the allegations of
his Wahhabi attitudes and following a course of independence, see Sati al-Husri, al-Bilad al-Arabiyya walDawla al-Uthmaniyya (Beirut: Dar al-Ilm lil-Malayin, 1960), 5864.
24
On the impact of the WahhabiSaudi attacks on Iraq, see Meir Litvak, Shii Scholars of NineteenthCentury Iraq: The Ulama
of Najaf and Karbala (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 12123.
25
Hala Fattah, The Politics of Regional Trade in Iraq, Arabia and the Gulf, 17451900 (Albany: State
University of New York Press, 1997), 1928.
26
Uthman ibn Abdullah ibn Bishr, Unwan al-Majd fi Tarikh Najd, ed. A. al-Shaykh (Riyadh: Wizarat
al-Maarif, 1971), 1:2022; Ibn Ghannam, Tarikh Najd, 8283; Abdullah ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Bassam,
Ulama
Najd fi Sitat Qurun (Mecca: Matbaat al-Nahda al-Haditha, 197778), 1:2830.
27
Ibn Ghannam, Tarikh Najd, 32023. On Shaykh Abd al-Rahman al-Suwaydi, see Mardam-Bec, Alam
al-Qarn al-Thalith Ashar, 16566; Muhammad Khalil al-Muradi, Silk al-Durar fi Ayan al-Qarn al-Thani
Ashar (Baghdad: Maktabat al-Muthanna, n. d.), 4:30.
28
See, for example, another Wahhabi response to the Iraqi ulama written by the grandson of Ibn Abd
al-Wahhab, in Sulayman ibn Abdullah ibn Abd al-Wahhab, Tawhid al-Khallaq fi Jawab Ahl al-Iraq (Cairo:
al-Matbaa al-Sharqiyya, 18041805).
29
Uthman ibn Sanad, Matali al-Suud bi-Tayb Akhbar al-Wali Dawud, ed. Amin ibn Hasan al-Halwani
(Cairo: al-Matbaa al-Salafiyya, 195152), 72; al-Azzawi, Tarikh al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 6:15557. In
the same period, Mulla Muhammad al-Musilli (known as Ibn al-Kula), a qadi of Diyar Bakr and then of
Bagdad, was apparently open about his Wahhabi beliefs. As a result, Ibn al-Kula lost his position and was
exiled from Baghdad by its wali Suleiman Pasha the Elder in 1794: Yasin al-Umari, Ghara
ib al-Athar fi
Hawadith al-Qarn al-Thalith Ashar (Mosul: Matbaat Umm al-Rabiayn, 1940), 3536.
30
Al-Azzawi, Tarikh al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 6:15859.
31
The complex relations that connected the Mamluk walis with the local forces of Baghdad are explained
in Tom Niewenhuis, Politics and Society in Early Modern Iraq: Mamluk Pashas, Tribal Shaykhs and Local
Rule Between 18021831 (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1982).
32
Abd al-Razzaq al-Bitar, Hiliyat al-Bashar fi Tarikh al-Qarn al-Thalith Ashar, ed. Muhammad Bahjat
al-Bitar (Damascus: al-Majma al-Ilmi al-Arabi, 1963), 2:1095. See also al-Alusi (Numan), Jal
al-Aynayin,
29, 5657.
33
Still the most detailed study of the life and impact of Mawlana Khalid is perhaps Albert Houranis
classic Sufism and Modern Islam: Mawlana Khalid and the Naqshbandi Order (1972), repr. in Albert
Hourani, The Emergence of the Modern Middle East (London: Macmillan, 1981), 7589.
34
On the life and works of Sirhindi, see Yohanan Friedmann, Shaykh Ahmad Sirhindi: An Outline of His
Thought and a Study of His Image in the Eyes of Posterity (Montreal: MacGillQueens University Press,
1971); Abul Hasan al-Nadawi, Saviours of Islamic Spirit: Shaikh Ahmad Mujadid Alf Thani (Lucknow:
Academy of Islamic Research and Publications, 1983). Arthur F. Buchler, The NaqshbandiyyaMujaddidiyyah and Its Rise to Prominence in India, Bulletin of the Henry Martyn Institute of Islamic Studies 13, 34
(1994): 4461, brings the research on the NaqshbandiyyaMujaddidiyya up to date.
35
On Shah Wali-Allah, see G. N. Jalbani, Teachings of Shah Waliyullah of Delhi (Lahore: S. H. Muhammad Ashraf, 1967); Ishtiaq Husain Qureshi, The Muslim Community of the Indo-Pakistan Subcontinent,
6101947 (The Hague: Mouton and Company, 1962), 17692. On possible common intellectual roots for
Wali-Allah and Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, see Voll, Muhammad Hayya al-Sindi, 3239.
36
Aziz Ahmad, An Intellectual History of Islam in India (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969), 9.
19

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 491

Abd al-Majid ibn Muhammad al-Khani, al-Kawakib al-Durriyya Ala al-Hada
iq al-Wardiyya fi Ajjilla

al-Sada al-Naqshbandiyya, ed. Muhammad Khalid al-Kharsa (Damascus: Dar al-Bayruti, 1997), 70910.
Cf. Butrus Abu Manneh, Khalwa and Rabita in the Khalidi Suborder, in Naqshbandis, ed. M. Gaborieau,
A. Popovic, and T. Zarcone (Istanbul: Institut Francais dEtudes Anatoliennes dIstanbul, 1990), 289302.
38
Ibid., 693, 712. On Mawlana Khalids defense of the Ashari notion of the partial responsibility of
man, elaborated in his treatise al-Iqd al-Jawhari fi al-Farq Bayn Kasbai al-Maturidi wal-Ashari, see Ismail
al-Baghdadi, Idah al-Maknun fi al-Dhayil ala Kashf al-Zunun, vol. 2 (Istanbul: n.p., 194547), col. 107;
al-Zirikli, al-Alam, 2:294; Kahhala, Mujam al-Mu
alifin, 4:95.
39
On the life and works of Ahmad ibn Hajar al-Haytami (150467), Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Shirbini
(d. 1570), and Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Ramli (151396), see al-Zirikli, al-Alam, 1:234, 6:68.
40
Al-Khani, al-Kawakib al-Durriyya, 66869; al-Bitar, Hiliyat al-Bashar, 1:58081.
41
For a detailed examination of the circumstances that surrounded his leaving Sulaymaniyya, see Hourani, Sufism and Modern Islam, 8485.
42
He, for example, was critical of his Iraqi follower, Shaykh Ubayd-Allah al-Haydari, when he accepted
the muftiship of Baghdad. For further details, see al-Khani, al-Kawakib al-Durriyya, 725.
43
Al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 9.
44
Ibid., pl. 13039; Abu al-Thana
Mahmud al-Alusi, Nashwat al-Shumul fi al-Safar ila Islambul (Baghdad: Matbaat al-Wilaya, 187475), 1821.
45
Al-Azzawi, Tarikh al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 7:15. A detailed account of the fall of Mamluk rule is
presented in Sulayman Fa
iq, Tarikh Baghdad, trans. Kazim Nawras (Baghdad: Matbaat al-Maarif, 1962),
10105.
46
The biography of Abd al-Ghani al-Jamil was written by Abdullah, the elder son of Abu al-Thana
alAlusi. See Abdullah al-Alusi, al-Rawd al-Khamil fi Mada
h al-Jamil Ibn al-Jamil, ms. 12496, Iraqi Museum, Baghdad. See also al-Zirikli, al-Alam, 4:33.
47
Al-Athari, Mahmud Shukri, 32; al-Azzawi, Tarikh al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 7:1516.
48
Abd al-Aziz Nawwar, Thawrat 1832 fi al-Iraq, al-Hilal (February 1961), 2123.
49
Mahmud Shukri al-Alusi, al-Misk al-Adhfar fi Tarajim Ulama
al-Qarnayn al-Thani Ashar wal-Thalith
Ashar (Baghdad: Matbaat al-Adab, 1930), 128.
50
Ibrahim al-Wa
ili, al-Shir al-Siyasi fi al-Iraq fi al-Qarn al-Tasi Ashar (Baghdad: Matbaat al-Maarif,
1978), 16870.
51
Al-Azzawi, Dhikra Abi al-Thana
al-Alusi, 5152; al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 23; al-Bitar, Hiliyat alBashar, 3:1450. Al-Azzawi (Tarikh al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 7:26) wrote that al-Alusi became the mufti
of Baghdad in 1249 A.H. or early in 1250 A.H. (1833/34). This cannot be right, for al-Alusi himself indicates
(Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 12) that the sermon of al-Gaylani mosque, which marked the beginning of his
comeback, was delivered in Ramadan 1250 (January 1835). It is generally accepted that al-Alusi became
a mufti shortly after thatthat is, sometime in early 1835.
52
Abd al-Wahhab Yasini Zadah (1758/591833/34) was a mufti of Istanbul and Shaykh al-Islam. On
him, see Ismail al-Baghdadi, Hadiyat al-Arifin: Asma
al-Mu
alifin wa Athar al-Musannifin vol. 1 (Istanbul:
n.p., 195155), col. 643. Al-Alusis commentary on Zadahs book is titled Sharh al-Burhan fi Itaat alSulatan.
53
Al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 30; Abd al-Aziz Nawwar, Mawaqif Siyasiyya li-Abi al-Thana
al-Alusi, alMajalla al-Tarikhiyya al-Misriyya 14 (1968): 15253; Ali al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtimaiyya min Tarikh alIraq al-Hadith (Baghdad: Matbaat al-Irshad, 1971), 2:104105. It is al-Alusi (Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl.
12) who confirmed that the writing of the commentary preceded his appointment to the muftiship.
54
Abd al-Fattah al-Shawwaf and Numan Khayr al-Din al-Alusi, Hadiqat al-Wurud fi Mada
ih Abi alThana
Shihab al-Din Mahmud, ms. 8527, Iraqi Museum, Baghdad. The first volume of this collection of
praises was collected by al-Shawwaf. But for the early death of al-Shawwaf in 1836, the collection was
completed by Numan, the son of Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi.
55
Al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 12; al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 29. Al-Alusis response to the Iranian
questions was later published as the book al-Ajwiba al-Iraqiyya an al-As
ila al-Iraniyya (Istanbul: Matbaat
Maktab al-Sana
i, 18991900).
56
Al-Azzawi, Tarikh al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 7:3839.
57
Al-Alusi, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 13; al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 24; Nawwar, Mawaqif Siyasiyya liAbi al-Thana
al-Alusi, 15960.
58
Al-Alusis account of his stay in Istanbul for more than a year between 1851 and 1852, a period during
37

492 Basheer M. Nafi

which he frequently met with Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad Arif Hikmat, covered plates 52197 of Ghara
ib
al-Ightirab. On Najib Pashas tense relations with the French consulate and the competition for influence
between the British and the French in Baghdad, see al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtimaiyya, 11215.
59
Mustafa Nur al-Din al-Waiz, al-Rawd al-Azhar fi Tarajim Al al-Sayyid Jafar (Mosul: Matbaat alItihad, 1948), 8589. On the epidemic of 184647 and the massive rise in the cost of living, see al-Alusi,
al-Misk al-Adhfar, 136; al-Azzawi, Tarikh al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 7:77, 82. For an analysis of popular
revolt in a 19th-century Iraqi urban context, see Juan R. I. Cole and Moojan Momen, Mafia, Mob and
Shiism in Iraq: The Rebellion of Ottoman Karbala
, 18241843, Past and Present (1986): 11243. On
Amin al-Waiz (180858) and his Salafi convictions, see al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 59; Taymur, Alam alFikr al-Islami, 331.
60
In his biography of al-Alusi (Dhikra Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi, 96), al-Azzawi suggested that it was the
Sublime Porte that issued the decision to dismiss al-Alusi. Al-Azzawi, however, presented no evidence
and indicated no source to support his statement. The most likely sequence of events is that the dismissal
of the mufti was decided by Najib Pasha, then was approved by the Porte and the shaykh al-Islam.
61
Abu al-Thana
Mahmud al-Alusi, Nashwat al-Shumul fi al-Safar ila Islambul; idem, Nashwat al-Mudam
fi al-Awd ila Madinat al-Salam (Baghdad: Matbaat al-Wilaya, 187576); idem, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab. An
analysis of the last travel account constitutes part of Hala Fattahs recently published, Representations of
Self and the Other in Two Iraqi Travelogues of the Ottoman Period, International Journal of Middle East
Studies 30 (1998): 5176.
62
Before leaving Istanbul, Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi wrote a biography of the shaykh al-Islam titled, Shahyi al-Nagham fi Tarjamat Walyi al-Niam, ms. 9137, Iraqi Museum, Baghdad. The shaykh al-Islam invited
al-Alusi to stay in Istanbul, but when al-Alusi expressed his intent to return to Baghdad, the shaykh alIslam presented him with a watch and 50,000 Ottoman piastres on the day of his departure: see Ghara
ib
al-Ightirab, 197; al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 26. On Ahmad Arif Hikmat and his claim of Sharifian descent,
see al-Zirikli, al-Alam, 1:141.
63
Fattah, Representations of Self, 65.
64
Nawwar, Mawaqif Siyasiyya li-Abi al-Thana
al-Alusi, 15763.
65
Various aspects of the Tanzimat era and its impact on the Ottoman state and society are studied in
Bernard Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1961), 73125; William R. Polk and Richard L. Chambers, ed., Beginnings of Modernization in the Middle East (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1968); Stanford J. Shaw and Ezel K. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire
and Modern Turkey. Volume 2: Reform, Revolution and Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1977), 55133, 15456; Ira M. Lapidus, A History of the Islamic Societies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 597601; Roderic H. Davison, Reform in the Ottoman Empire: 18561876 (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963); idem, Essays in Ottoman History, 17741923: The Impact of the
West (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1990), 96111, 16679. For specific analyses of the impact of
modernization on the ulama class, see Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 8092; Brinkley Messick, The Calligraphic State: Textual Domination and History in a
Muslim Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 99114; Basheer M. Nafi, The Rise and
Decline of the ArabIslamic Reform Movement (London: Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, 2000),
3745.
66
Lewis, Emergence of Modern Turkey, 92; Carter V. Findley, Bureaucratic Reform in the Ottoman
Empire: The Sublime Porte, 17891922 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1980), 6163.
67
One of the most detailed studies of the modernization of Ottoman Iraq is Jamil Musa al-Najjar, alIdara al-Uthmaniyya fi Wilayat Baghdad: Min Ahd al-Wali Midhat Pasha ila Nihayat al-Hukm al-Uthmani, 18691917 (Cairo: Maktabat Madbuli, 1991). See also Davison, Reform, 160.
68
The appointment of Najib Pasha to the governorship of Baghdad was in exchange for yearly payment
of 50,000 sacks to the Ottoman treasury: see Yaqub Sarkis, Mabahith Iraqiyya fi al-Jughrafiya wal-Tarikh
wal-Athar wa Khitat Baghdad (Baghdad: Sharikat al-Tijara wal-Tibaa, 194855), 1:73; Fattah, Politics of
Regional Trade, 99100. It was perhaps not until 1851, when the new wali was appointed with a salary,
that the iltizam contract was abolishedat least, on the level of governor.
69
Al-Azzawi, al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 7:9495.
70
Mustafa Jawad and Ahmad Susa, Dalil Kharitat Baghdad al-Mufasal fi Khitat Baghdad Qadiman wa
Hadithan (Baghdad: Matbaat al-Majma al-Ilmi al-Iraqi, 1958), 334. Cf. Davison, Reform, 163, which
mentions that the municipality was founded a year later by Midhat Pasha.

Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi 493

71

Al-Najjar, al-Idara al-Uthmaniyya fi Wilayat Baghdad, 33338, 41725.

Ibid., 39197.
73
Al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 61.
74
Ahmad Lutfi, Tarih-i Lutfi, ed. Abd al-Rahman Seref (Istanbul: Matbaa-i-Amira, 12901328), 8:177.
On Najib Pashas reputation as a heavy-handed, authoritarian official, see C. F. Farah, Necip Pasa and the
British in Syria, Archivum Ottomanicum 2 (1970): 11553; Cole and Momen, Mafia, Mob and Shiism
in Iraq, 127; Fa
iq, Tarikh Baghdad, 17374.
75
Al-Azzawi, al-Iraq Bayn Ihtilalayn, 7:16, 83; al-Wardi, Lamahat Ijtimaiyya, 2:146. Najib Pashas
attitude toward the Gaylanis reversed that of Ali Pasha, who had exiled the naqib al-ashraf Mahmud alNaqib to Sulaymaniyya in 1837 (ibid., 31).
76
The first impetus to nationalism, Edward Shils wrote, seems to have come from a deepening distance
between ruler and ruled. See Edward Shils, The intellectuals in the Political Development of the New
States, World Politics 12 (1960): 343. See also Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (London:
Verso, 1991), 4765.
77
As is sharply noted by Muhammad Bahjat al-Athari, the faithful student of the Alusi school: see alAthari, Alam al-Iraq, 39.
78
See, for example, al-Alusi, Nashwat al-Shumul, 1012, 2728, 3132, 34, 43; idem, Ghara
ib alIghtirab, pl. 7071, 8485, 95, 145.
79
This magnum opus of Abu al-Thana
al-Alusi has been published in different editions since the late
19th century. The first edition was published in nine volumes in Cairo by Bulaq Press (188493), supervised by his son Numan al-Alusi. On the first edition, see Yusuf Ilyas Sarkis, Mujam al-Matbuat alArabiyya (Cairo: Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, n.d.), vol. 1, col. 4. Rights of publication were then
passed by al-Alusis grandson Mahmud Shukri to al-Muniriyya Press (Cairo, 193435), who printed the
book in thirty volumes, each corresponding to a part of the Qur
ans thirty parts. Muhammad Munir alDimashqi, owner of al-Muniriyya Press and a Salafi scholar, added short comments and notes at the foot
of some pages. It is the fourth reprint of this edition, published by al-Muniriyya Press (Cairo) and Dar
Ihiya
al-Turath al-Arabi (Beirut, 1985), that is referred to here.
80
Al-Alusi, Ruh al-Maani, 1:520.
81
Al-Bitar, Hiliyat al-Bashar, 3:1454.
82
Muhammad Husayn al-Dhahabi, al-Tafsir wal-Mufasirun (Beirut: Dar Ihiya
al-Turath al-Arabi, 1967),
1:35262.
83
Al-Athari, Alam al-Iraq, 29; idem, Mahmud Shukri, 33.
84
On the major schools of Qur
anic exegesis, see al-Dhahabi, al-Tafsir wal-Mufasirun, 1:140287; alShahat al-Sayyid Zaghlul, al-Itijahat al-Fikriyya fi al-Tafsir (Alexandria: al-Hai
a al-Misriyya al-Ama lilKitab, 1975), 161236. On the early Islamic debate about tafsir, see Harris Birkeland, Old Muslim Opposition Against Interpretation of the Koran, in The Qur
an: Formative Interpretation, ed. Andrew Rippin
(Brookfield, Vt.: Variorum, 1999), 4080.
85
Sarkis (Mujam al-Matbuat, vol. 1, col. 4) reported that al-Alusi took five years to write his tafsir,
concluding it in 1257/184142. This contradicts dates specified by al-Alusi himself: see al-Alusi, Ruh alMaani, 1:4, 30:288, where he indicates that he started writing in November 1836 and completed the work
in February 1851.
86
Al-Alusi, Ruh al Maani, 1:67, 3637, 67, 102103, 13334, 256.
87
Ibid., 1:39.
88
Fakhr al-Din Muhammad al-Razi, Mafatih al-Ghayb (Beirut: Dar al-Fikr, 1981), 32 pts. in 16 vols.
On al-Razi and his tafsir, see al-Dhahabi, al-Tafsir wal-Mufasirun, 1:28896.
89
Al-Alusi, Ruh al-Maani, 1:1819.
90
Ibid., 1:7.
91
Abu al-Hasan al-Ashari, al-Ibana an
Usul al-Diyana, ed. F. Mahmud, 2 vols. (Cairo: Dar al-Ansar,
1977). This is the most complete edition of al-Asharis major work, the first volume of which is the editors
introductory study. The text of al-Ibana makes up the second volume. For al-Asharis announcement of
his adherence to Ibn Hanbals school of thought, see: 2:2021.
92
Al-Alusi, Ruh al-Maani, 1:87. See also ibid., 1:6061.
93
See, for example, ibid., 1:64, 102103, 256; ibid., 2:24, 27, 48, 72, 91, 104, 126, 163, 175; ibid., 3:
1112; cf. ibid., 23:231; ibid., 24:93; ibid., 27:2526, 16263.
94
Ibid., 3:2728.
72

494 Basheer M. Nafi

95

Ibid., 26:178, 27:16568, 29:4, 30:278.

Ibid., 27:158. See also further positive references to Ibn al-Qayim in ibid., 29:147; to the Hanbali
faqih Ibn al-Jawzi in ibid., 26:72, 30:27273. Another instance of al-Alusis adherence to the Salafi view
in opposition to al-Ghazalis is shown in his commentary on the concept of God as the first and the last
of all existence: (ibid., 27:16568).
97
Ibid., 26:73, 27:21, 28:134. A few months after he concluded the writing of his tafsir, al-Alusi, who
realized that Shaykh al-Islam Ahmad Arif Hikmat was receptive to Salafi ideas, presented an open and
powerful defense of Ibn Taymiyya and his theological views: see Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 17677.
98
See, for example, al-Alusi, Ruh al-Maani, 3:17, 14:213.
99
Ibid., 1:6061, 215; ibid., 3:910, 8788; ibid., 25:73; ibid., 26:97; ibid., 30:27273.
100
Ibid., 1:13334, 4:1012, 23:102103. See further elaboration of this theme, with specific challenge
to al-Razis Ashari views, in idem, Ghara
ib al-Ightirab, pl. 17475.
101
Idem, Ruh al-Maani, 26:8990.
102
Ibid., 14:148.
103
Abraham Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity: Aleppo in the Eighteenth Century (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1989).
104
H. A. R. Gibb and Harold Bowen, Islamic Society and the West, vol. 1, pt. 2 (London: Oxford University Press, 1957), 13536; Marcus, The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, 6061.
105
Al-Alusi, Ruh al-Maani, 28:35.
106
Hourani, Arabic Thought, 37.
96