Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī: Scholar, Saint, and Forefather of the Farangī Maḥall
In the early hours of Wednesday, I had a sudden heartfelt inclination to write an introductory biography of Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī, intending to publish it on Khairabadi Institute’s articles page for Thursday, 27 March 2025, the next day. As I began gathering information about his life, I was struck with awe on discovering that his martyrdom had occurred on the 27th of March in the Gregorian calendar — the very date I had chosen, unknowingly, for the release of his introductory biography.
What follows is a brief introduction to this great martyr and a selection of his works, though each point here is worthy of a full paper in itself. We hope to develop these further in the near future InshāʾAllāh. May Allah accept it — Āmīn.
A Chain of Learning
The Farangī Maḥall tradition takes immense pride in its illustrious lineage of scholars. Recognising these influential figures helps us understand the foundation for the remarkable heights achieved by Sunnī subcontinental scholarship over the subsequent next three centuries.
The scholars of the Farangī Maḥall particularly Mullā Niẓām al-Dīn Sihālwī developed and founded and developed the original Dars-i Niẓāmī curriculum. However, these scholars did not arise in a vacuum. The namesake, Mullā Niẓām al-Dīn Sihālwī was actually building upon centuries of intellectual tradition before him. This is similar to how the Ottomans are named after ʿUthmān Ghāzī. The success of his turkic ancestry apexed in his age, but his period of influence was essentially fueled by the sacrifices and groundwork laid by his father, grandfather, and earlier generations.
Before Mullā Niẓām al-Dīn, there was his father Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shahīd, who was among the foremost scholars of the 17th century and the author of many pivotal books in the Islamic intellectual tradition.
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shahīd, deeply immersed in the intellectual traditions passed down through the ages, was in reality the inspiration behind the eventual development of a curriculum that gave rise to the Farangī Maḥall tradition — a body of scholarship that went on to shape the intellectual landscape of the subcontinent to this day.
The Farangi Mahall, Lucknow, India
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālwī al-Anṣārī al-Shahīd’s Lineage
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn the Martyr, was the son of ʿAllāmah ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm, son of Mullā ʿAbd al-Karīm, son of Mullā Aḥmad, son of Mullā Muḥammad Ḥāfiẓ al-Dīn al-Sihālwī. His lineage traces back to Hz. Abū Ayyūb al-Anṣārī (may Allah be pleased with him), through the 11th-century Sufi saint, Shaykh al-Islām, Abū Ismʿāʾīl ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī (d. 1088) of Herat.
Mullā ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī dedicates an entire section to Shaykh al-Islām in his Nafaḥāt al-Uns, asserting that the title Shaykh al-Islām throughout his book exclusively refers to ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī, the esteemed forefather of Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn.
The ancestors of Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn migrated to India in the early years of the Delhi Sultanate. Records indicate that the great Chishtī saint, Maḥbūb al-Ilāh, Niẓām al-Dīn Awliyāʾ, prayed for the knowledge and piety of some ancestors and their descendants.
His Teachers and Roots in the Shīrāzī Tradition
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn was born in Sihāli, a village of Lucknow. He studied the Islamic sciences under three illustrious scholars, namely his father ʿAllāmah ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm, Mullā Dānyāl and ʿAllāmah al-Qāḍī Ṣadr al-Dīn Ghansī Ilāhābādī, the spiritual successor (khalīfah) of the Sufi master Mawlānā Muḥibbullāh al-Ilāhābādī.
Interestingly, Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn inherited knowledge from the Shīrāzī tradition through his teacher, Mullā Dānyāl— a connection further deepened by Mullā Dānyāl being a student of Mawlānā ʿAbd al-Salām al-Dīwī.
A pivotal moment occurred earlier when Mawlānā Abd al-Salām al-Dīwī travelled to Lahore to revise his knowledge with his new teacher, the illustrious scholar, Mawlānā Abd al-Salām al-Lāhorī. Remarkably, both scholars shared the same name. This encounter significantly influenced Muslim intellectual discourse in the Indian subcontinent for centuries to come.
Mawlānā Abd al-Salām al-Lāhorī was not an isolated figure. He, in turn, benefitted from the Shīrāzī tradition, ultimately tracing his lineage back to the prominent scholar al-Muhaqqiq al-Dawwānī. Notably, Mawlānā Abd al-Salām al-Lāhorī was a fortunate student of the great Allāmah of the East, Fathullāh al-Shīrāzī.
Through this remarkable chain of teachers, the Farangī Maḥall became deeply influenced by the Shīrāzī school, particularly with regards to the maʿqūlāt tradition (rational sciences). This influence gave rise to a uniqueness in subsequent Muslim scholarship over the next three centuries, leading to an era of groundbreaking intellectual research and scholarship that remains underexplored to this day.
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālwī to Imām Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn’s teachers and his subsequent connection to the Shīrāzī tradition trace his scholarly lineage back to Imām Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī through 17 teachers. Below is one of his chains of transmission to Imām al-Ghazālī. It is worth noting that multiple such chains exist, as several scholars within the transmission studied under more than one teacher — each path ultimately leading back to Imām al-Ghazālī himself:
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn al-Shahīd
Mawlānā Dāniyāl
Mawlānā ʿAbd al-Salām al-Dīwī
Mawlānā ʿAbd al-Salām al-Lāhorī
ʿAllāmah Fathullāh al-Shīrāzī
Mawlānā Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Shīrāzī
Imām Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad al-Ṣiddīqī al-Dawwānī
Mawlānā Saʿd al-Dīn Asʿad al-Dawwānī
Al-Sayyid al-Sharīf Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad al-Jurjānī
ʿAllāmah Mubārak Shāh al-Miṣrī
ʿAllāmah Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad Abū ʿAbd Allāh Quṭb al-Dīn al-Rāzī
Qāḍī ʿAḍud al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad al-Ījī
Shaykh Zayn al-Dīn al-Hankī
Qāḍī al-Bayḍāwī Nāṣir al-Dīn Abū Saʿīd ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar al-Shīrāzī
ʿAllāmah Tāj al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn al-Urmawī
Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar ibn Ḥusayn, Imām Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī
ʿAllāmah Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn ʿUmar
ʿAllāmah Muḥammad ibn Yaḥyā
Imām Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad, Ḥujjat al-Islām Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī
May Allah have mercy on them all — including those scholars whose names have been omitted due to variations in the chain of transmission.
Intellectual Contributions and Books
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn rose to prominence as one of the foremost scholars during the reign of Sultān Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr who greatly admired him. He attained mastery and became unmatched in uṣūl al-fiqh (principles of jurisprudence), maʿānī (rhetoric), manṭiq (logic), the natural sciences, metaphysics, mathematics, and the Arabic disciplines.
He devoted himself to teaching, and an innumerable number of students benefited from his instruction. Mullā Ghulām ʿAlī Āzād al-Bilgrāmī notes that the scholars of his era took pride in being counted among his students.
A Persian passage from the biography of Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn, found in Maʾāthir al-Kirām by Mullā Ghulām ʿAlī al-Bilgrāmī.
Another important point for the reader to see the far-reaching effects of the knowledge passed down from him is that Mullā Muḥibbullāh Bihārī (d. 1121 AH) — author of Sullam al-ʿUlūm, Musallam al-Thubūt, and Risālah Jawhar al-Fard - was the grand student of Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn through his foremost student, Sayyid Quṭb al-Dīn Shamsābādī.
Among his many scholarly achievements are the significant literary works he left behind, though there are many titles, here are some among them:
A marginal commentary (ḥāshiyah) on the Sharḥ al-ʿAqāʾid al-Dawwānī
A ḥāshiyah on al-Talwīḥ
A ḥāshiyah on al-ʿAqāʾid al-Nasafī
A ḥāshiyah on al-Tafrīʿāt by al-Bazdawī
A ḥāshiyah on al-Muṭawwal in maʿānī
A treatise on the definition of Dār al-Ḥarb
A ḥāshiyah on Sharḥ Ḥikmat al-ʿAyn
Spirituality & Gnosis
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn took the spiritual Allegiance (bayʿah) at the hands of his teacher ʿAllāmah al-Qāḍī Ghansī Ilāhābādī in the Ṣābirī Chistī Sufi order. Historians describe him as an ascetic and someone who possessed profound God-consciousness.
Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn was known for performing many supererogatory acts of worship and was deeply engaged in sacred knowledge, avoiding status and worldly fame. The Mughal emperor Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr, impressed by Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn’s scholarly reputation, extended an invitation to meet him. However, Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn declined the emperor’s request. Despite this, the just Sultān held him in great esteem and continued to correspond with him.
Martydom
At one point, there was a feud between two families in India, one of which was the Ayyubid family. Tragically, Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn, though not involved in the feud, was martyred by members of the other family. His martyrdom occurred on 19 Rajab, 1103 AH which corresponds to 27 March 1692 CE, at the age of 63.
He requested in his will that qiṣāṣ not be taken against those who killed him, though some historians report that Sultān Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr did take qiṣāṣ against the killers because they had murdered many students along with Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn. Other historians write that the killers survived but were afflicted with leprosy and vitiligo.
He left behind four sons: the eldest was Mullā Muhammad Asʿad, followed by Mullā Muḥammad Saʿīd, then Mullā Niẓām al-Dīn Muḥammad (founder of Dars-i Niẓāmī), and the youngest, Mullā Muḥammad Riḍā.
Laying the Foundation of the Farangī Maḥall
When Sultān Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr heard of his martyrdom, he was greatly grieved. He regarded Mullā Quṭb-ud-Dīn as one of India’s greatest scholars. To honour him, Aurangzeb gifted his children the Farangī palace in Lucknow to reside in. He wrote a decree in the names of Mullā Asʿad, and Mullā Saʿīd; this document remains preserved to this day.
The farmān issued by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, displayed on the wall of the Farangī Maḥall
These brothers, the sons of a scholar deeply rooted in generations of robust tradition, transformed the gifted palace into Dār al-ʿIlm w’al-ʿAmal—the Farangī Maḥall. The subsequent scholars who emerged from this tradition deserve to have their names, lives, and literary contributions documented in the English language. We ask Allah for tawfīq in fulfilling this aim — Āmīn.
Al-Fātiḥah for the soul of Mullā Quṭb al-Dīn al-Sihālawī al-Anṣārī al-Shahīd. 333 years later, we are still basking in the blessings of his martyrdom.
A close up of the farmān issued by Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb, displayed on the wall of the Farangī Maḥall
Learn More
To learn more about the philosophy of Dars-i Niẓāmī, the scholars of Farangī Maḥall, and their later offshoot, the Khairabādīs, refer to the following two papers:
Verified Solutions to Modern Intellectual Anxieties
Chronicles of the Khairabadi Family: Rediscovering our Lost Heritage
— Muhammad Mubashir Iqbal
27 March 2025 | 27 Ramaḍān 1446 AH
Bibliography
Āthār al-Awwal min ʿUlamāʾ Farangī Maḥall
Maʾāthir al-Kirām
al-Asānīd al-ʿĀliyah li-ʿUlamāʾ al-Jāmiʿah al-Qādiriyyah
Nafaḥāt al-Uns
Mumtaz ʿUlamāʾ Farangi Mahall
Verified Solutions to Modern Intellectual Anxieties
www.treebo.com/blog/historical-places-in-lucknow
www.telegraphindia.com/culture/a-mahal-called-farangi-a-story-from-another-time-of-another-lucknow/cid/1992078
