Shah Waliyullah Dihlavi: Aspirations and Tensions of Islamic Cosmopolitanism

South Asia’s most reputable and influential scholar of Islam

Shah Waliyullah Dihlavi (1703–1762) was a highly renowned and influential scholar of Islam who produced foundational works on the Qur’an, Islamic law and jurisprudence, Sufism, philosophy, and politics. He sought to reconcile seemingly competing strands of Muslim intellectual thought and practice, pursuing a cosmopolitan Islam marked not by dogmatism and finality but by debate and hermeneutical flexibility. Yet it is precisely in h...