Kraus Hamdani Article

in: Paolo Sartori, Danielle Ross (eds), Shari‘a in the Russian Empire. The Reach and Limits of Islamic Law in Central Eurasia, 1550-1917. (Edinburg University Press, 2020), 239-280, 2020

Die Welt des Islams, online first publication, 2024

Published online 20 September 2024 open access: https://brill.com/view/journals/wdi/aop/article-10.1163-15700607-20240025/article-10.1163-15700607-20240025.xml Abstract The focus of this article is the eminent Ismāʿīlī scholar Sayyidī Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Hamdānī (1833–98) and his private notebook, which over time he filled with a wide variety of content, ranging across religions, history, the sciences and mathematics, literature, and the occult. The multiple-text manuscript (majmūʿa) is part of the Hamdani Manuscript Collection, now at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London (Ms. 1662). Al-Hamdānī, who is known as an important protagonist in the history of this family library, was also a “moving spirit” in the Daʿwa, the religious and political mission of the Ismāʿīlī Dāʾūdī Bohra Ṭayyibīs in Gujarat. As most of his epistles andhis memoirs are not accessible and have not been researched until now, the notebook provides a preliminary testimony, opening a window to his intellectual world. In this article, this unique document is presented in its historical context and described in terms of its materiality, content and use. It is considered as a rich source of information about its owner and the literary holdings a nineteenth-century Bohra scholar could draw on. We also ask what role the personal manuscript might have played with respect to Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Hamdānī’s religious commitments in the Ṭayyibī Daʿwa. Keywords Dāʾūdī Bohra Ṭayyibīs – Ismāʿīlī mission – Ismāʿīlī manuscript libraries – Hamdani Collection – personal manuscript – notebook– religious minorities in British India

Journal of Shi'a Islamic Studies, 2014

Turkish Journal of Shiite Studies, 2019

This conversation is on Dr. Sumaiya Hamdani's life, as well as Islamic history, Shiite history, Ismaili tradition, and academia. She is an Associate Professor in the History and Art History Department of George Mason University, Virginia. Hamdani comes from a Dawoodi/Tayyibi Ismaili family. The aim of this paper is to bring the view of an academician who is living in America, on tradition, Islamic history, Ismaili history, and academic studies to the reader.

Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 13 (1990), 85–112. [Reprinted in: Uri Rubin, Muhammad the Prophet and Arabia, Variorum Collected Studies Series (Ashgate, 2011), no. X]

Al-qantara, 2008

Abù D×wùd al-Sijist×nê (d. Basra, 275/889) was a prominent collector of prophetic hadith. He seems to have collected in Iraq, Mecca, and Syria A.H. 220-35, then Khurasan till the early 240s, then Iraq, Syria, and Egypt till around 250. He claimed to have collected 500,000 in all. He spent most of the years 250-70 in Tarsus, composing his famous Sunan, then the last five years of his life teaching near Basra. This article reviews Abù D×wùd's known works, especially al-Sunan, which became one of the Six Books. The Sunan was transmitted from him in slightly different versions by nine named traditionists. A little under 90 percent of it goes back to the Prophet. It is distinguished from other collections by its concentration on hadith that classify actions (açk×m). Abù D×wùd's express comments within the Sunan concern alternative versions, legal applications, and rij×l criticism. Because it seldom repeats hadith under multiple topics, it is probably the largest of the Six Books. It must be admitted that Abù D×wùd was unusually careless at identifying men in as×nêd. In his personal piety, Abù D×wùd stood above all for modesty. His separate collection of hadith on renunciation, al-Zuhd, comprises mainly the sayings of Companions. In law, Abù D×wùd was close to Açmad b. •anbal (d. 241/855). In theology, he adhered to the ninth-century ahl al-sunnah wa-l-jam×'ah. He is also said to have admired and been admired by the proto-Sufi Sahl al-Tustarê (d. 283/896?).

By the time Saiyid Ali flourished, the political situation in the Muslim world, especially in Persia and Central Asia, where the Saiyid spent most of his life, was very complex and turbulent. The historic Caliphate of Baghdad had already been sacked by Halagu in 1258, who later established his authority over Iraq and Persia and founded what came to be known as the II-khan rule. However, after the conversion of Ghazan Khan (1295-1304) to Islam, religious and political situation in Persia was radically changed, as in the preceding regimes Muslims had been subjected to a reign of terror. The situation in Central Asia during the fourteenth century was also undergoing severe political disruption. The "Chaghtai Ulus" had by now been disintegrated into smaller and independent domains always fighting each other. However, during the second half of the century, Amir Timur (d. 1405) rose to power and became the ruler of a vast empire which included Persia and Central Asia. But during the course of his campaigns he reduced to shambles what the heathen Mongols had earlier spared. Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani was a spectacular traveler of his times 1 . During his visits he spent most of this time in disseminating the message of Islam in the different parts of the world 2 . The historyrecords his busy schedule but still he managed the shortest spans of time to document his advices, decisions and judgments for the kings, nobles, and courtiers, religious and other scholars, and common people. Although caught up in the tight, busy and hectic schedule, he proved to be the greatest of the writers as well 3 . He 1 G.2 was an expert of Arabic and Persian languages, and so his writings are found in these scripts. For the convenience of the people, from time to time, his works have been translated into different languages 1 . As such the exact number of his writings is not clear but as per the researchers :his writings include poems in the form of ghazals and couplets, books and letters. Contrary to the common notion in Kashmir that portrays Amir-i Kabir only as a dervish or a saint who at most seems to have converted a good number of people to Islam by the force of his miracles, Amir-i Kabir was a prolific scholar of Arabic as well as Persian. He was a religious scholar, a preacher, a practicing Sufi and a great political thinker. The historians have attributed to him as many as 117 writings but the fact remains that this number seems an exaggerated one and researchers have not exactly fixed the number of his original writings. The writings of Amir-i-Kabir are scattered across in different libraries of the world and it seems likely that the scholars have benefited from a variety of his writings although all these writings are not extent. The author of Khulasatul Manaqib quotes Amir-i-Kabir himself saying: " ‫مرا‬ ‫سال‬ ‫صد‬ ‫بہ‬ ‫من‬ ِ ‫فوت‬ ‫از‬ ‫بعد‬ ‫ولیکن‬ ‫شناخت‬ ‫نہ‬ ‫کسے‬ ‫روزگار‬ ‫دریں‬ ‫بشناسند‬ ‫من‬ ِ ‫وقدر‬ ‫گیرند‬ ‫فوائد‬ ‫من‬ ‫رسائل‬ ‫از‬ ‫کہ‬ ‫شوند‬ ‫پیدا‬ ‫طالبان‬ "

In the context of the recent debates over the reformism which occurred in Sufism in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, this article seeks to articulate a reformist system of the Muhammadan Way (║ar┘qah Mu╒ammadiyyah) which was formulated by Khaw┐jah M┘r Dard of Delhi (d. 1785) in the frame of a Comprehensive Way