Ahmad Zayni Dahlan ( ar, أحمد زَيْني دَحْلان) (1816–1886) was the

Grand Mufti The Grand Mufti (also called Chief Mufti, State Mufti and Supreme Mufti) is the head of regional muftis, Islamic jurisconsults, of a state. The office originated in the early modern era in the Ottoman empire and has been later adopted in a num ...

of the

Shafi'i The Shafii ( ar, شَافِعِي, translit=Shāfiʿī, also spelled Shafei) school, also known as Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by ...

madhab A ( ar, مذهب ', , "way to act". pl. مَذَاهِب , ) is a school of thought within '' fiqh'' (Islamic jurisprudence). The major Sunni Mathhab are Hanafi, Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali. They emerged in the ninth and tenth centurie ...

Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow ...

, and Shaykh al-Islam (highest religious authority in the Ottoman jurisdiction) in the

Hijaz The Hejaz (, also ; ar, ٱلْحِجَاز, al-Ḥijāz, lit=the Barrier, ) is a region in the west of Saudi Arabia. It includes the cities of Mecca, Medina, Jeddah, Tabuk, Yanbu, Taif, and Baljurashi. It is also known as the "Western Provi ...

region of the

Ottoman state The Ottoman Empire developed over the years as a despotism with the Sultan as the supreme ruler of a centralized government that had an effective control of its provinces, officials and inhabitants. Wealth and rank could be inherited but were j ...

, and Imam al-Haramayn ( Imam of the two holy cities, Mecca and

Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the second-holiest city in Islam, and the capital of the ...

), as well as being a

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the st ...

and an

Ash'ari Ashʿarī theology or Ashʿarism (; ar, الأشعرية: ) is one of the main Sunnī schools of Islamic theology, founded by the Muslim scholar, Shāfiʿī jurist, reformer, and scholastic theologian Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī in t ...

theologian Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing the ...

. He was known for his extreme criticisms of

Wahhabism Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...

and his tendency toward Sufism (

Mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ...

). In his treatise against Wahhabi influence, Dahlan clearly views Sufism as a legal and integral part of Islamic practice – including such aspects as

Tawassul Tawassul is an Arabic word originated from wa-sa-la- wasilat (). The ''wasilah'' is a means by which a person, goal or objective is approached, attained or achieved. In another version of the meaning of tawassul in another text: Tawassul is an Ara ...

(intercession, or addressing God through an intermediary), Tabarruk (seeking blessings through persons or things), and Ziyarat al-Qubur (the visitation of tombs and graves). He was the descendant of 'Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani. He authored, and personally published numerous works on

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

fiqh ''Fiqh'' (; ar, فقه ) is Islamic jurisprudence. Muhammad-> Companions-> Followers-> Fiqh. The commands and prohibitions chosen by God were revealed through the agency of the Prophet in both the Quran and the Sunnah (words, deeds, and ...

, and the

Islamic sciences The Islamic sciences ( ar, علوم الدين, ʿulūm al-dīn, lit=the sciences of religion) are a set of traditionally defined religious sciences practiced by Islamic scholars ( ), aimed at the construction and interpretation of Islamic relig ...

in general.

Birth

He was born in

1816 This year was known as the ''Year Without a Summer'', because of low temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly the result of the Mount Tambora volcanic eruption in Indonesia in 1815, causing severe global cooling, catastrophic in s ...

1817 Events January–March * January 1 – Sailing through the Sandwich Islands, Otto von Kotzebue discovers New Year Island. * January 19 – An army of 5,423 soldiers, led by General José de San Martín, starts crossing the ...

Teachers

He studied under Ahmad al-Marzuqi al-Maliki al-Makki ( ar, أحمد المرزوقي المالكي المكي).

Students

His students were so many, to the extent that it is rare to find a scholar who came after him whose chains of narrations do not include him. Among his students were

Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca Hussein bin Ali al-Hashimi ( ar, الحسين بن علي الهاشمي, al-Ḥusayn bin ‘Alī al-Hāshimī; 1 May 18544 June 1931) was an Arab leader from the Banu Hashim clan who was the Sharif and Emir of Mecca from 1908 and, after procl ...

who studied the

Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , s ...

with him and completed its

memorization Memorization is the process of committing something to memory. It is a mental process undertaken in order to store in memory for later recall visual, auditory, or tactical information. The scientific study of memory is part of cognitive neuros ...

, Imam

Ahmed Raza Khan Ahmed Raza Khan, commonly known as Aala Hazrat, Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi, or Ahmed Rida Khan in Arabic, (14 June 1856 CE or 10 Shawwal 1272 AH – 28 October 1921 CE or 25 Safar 1340 AH), was an Islamic scholar, jurist, mufti, philoso ...

Qadri Barelvi,

Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri Abū Ibrāhīm K͟halīl Aḥmad ibn Majīd ‘Alī Anbahṭawī Sahāranpūrī Muhājir Madanī ( ur, ; December 185213 October 1927) was a Deobandi Hanafi Islamic scholar from India who authored ''Badhl al-Majhud'', an 18-volume commentar ...

, Sheikh Mustafa, Usman bin Yahya, Arsyad Thawil al-Bantani,

Muhammad Amrullah Muhammad Amrullah Tuanku Muhammad Abdullah Saleh (1840 in West Sumatra – 1909 in West Sumatra) also known as Tuanku Kisai, was a great scholar of Minangkabau and an ancestor of two major figures in the Malay world. One man is his own son, Abdul ...

, and Ahmad b. Hasan al-'Attas.

Works

He wrote and taught in an era when the first printing press came to

, Dahlan was able to disseminate his challenges to

Salafism The Salafi movement or Salafism () is a reform branch movement within Sunni Islam that originated during the nineteenth century. The name refers to advocacy of a return to the traditions of the "pious predecessors" (), the first three generat ...

through his devoted students. He wrote, for instance, a booklet outlining the suffering

Wahhabis Wahhabism ( ar, ٱلْوَهَّابِيَةُ, translit=al-Wahhābiyyah) is a Sunni Islamic revivalist and fundamentalist movement associated with the reformist doctrines of the 18th-century Arabian Islamic scholar, theologian, preacher, and ...

brought to Mecca during their rule in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, '' Fitnat al-Wahhabiyyah'' ( ar, فتنة الوهابية, lit=The Wahhabi Fitna), and also a study refuting the entire Wahhabi doctrine and practices, ''Al-Durar al-Saniyyah fi al-Radd 'ala al-Wahhabiyyah'' ( ar, الدرر السَنِيَّة فى الرد على الوهابية, lit=The Pure Pearls in Answering the Wahhabis). Following is a list of some of his published works: * '' Fitnat al-Wahhabiyyah'' ( ar, فتنة الوهابية). * ''Al-Durar al-Saniyyah fi al-Radd 'ala al-Wahhabiyyah'' ( ar, الدرر السَنِيَّة فى الرد على الوهابية). * ''Khulasat al-Kalam fi Bayan Umara' al-Balad al-Haram'' ( ar, خلاصة الكلام في بيان أمراء البلد الحرام). * ''Al-Futuhat al-Islamiyyah ba'da Mudhiy al-Futuhat al-Nabawiyyah'' ( ar, الفتوحات الإسلامية بعد مضي الفتوحات النبوية). * ''Sharh al-Ajurrumiyyah'', by Ibn Ajurrum ( ar, شرح الأجرومية). * ''Sharh al-Alfiyyah'', by

Ibn Malik Abu 'Abd Allah Jamal al-Din Muḥammad ibn Abd Allāh ibn Malik al-Ta'i al-Jayyani ( ar, ابو عبدالله جمال الدين محمد بن عبدالله بن محمد بن عبدالله بن مالك الطائي الجياني النحو ...

( ar, شرح الألفية). * ''Tanbih al-Ghafilin, Mukhtasar Minhaj al-'Abidin'', by

al-Ghazali Al-Ghazali ( – 19 December 1111; ), full name (), and known in Persian-speaking countries as Imam Muhammad-i Ghazali (Persian: امام محمد غزالی) or in Medieval Europe by the Latinized as Algazelus or Algazel, was a Persian poly ...

( ar, تنبيه الغافلين: مختصر منهاج العابدين).

Death

He died in

in 1886.

Notes

References

External links

A Brief Biography of Ahmad Zayni Dahlan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dahlan, Ahmad Zayni Asharis Shafi'is Shaykh al-Islāms Sunni Sufis Sunni imams Sunni Muslim scholars 19th-century Muslim theologians Arab historians Arab Muslim historians of Islam Arab grammarians Arab linguists Hadith scholars Hashemite people Muftis of Mecca Critics of Wahhabism 1810s births 1886 deaths 19th-century Arabic writers