Shah Waliullah was born in 1703 CE, in the town of Phulat in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, India. It is said his father, Shah Abdur Raheem, was foretold of the birth of a pious and obedient son by Hazrath Qutubuddin Bakhteyaar-e-Kaaki, who made Shah Abdur Raheem promise that the boy will be named after him as Qutubuddin Ahmad. So he named his boy Qutubuddin Ahmad. The name Shah Waliullah is given to him by people because Waliulla means "close to God" as he was very pious man. So his complete name was Shah Waliullah Qutubuddin Ahmad. His genealogy can be traced back to the second Caliph of Islam, Hazrath Umar Farooq (RA) from the paternal side and to Hazrath Musa Kazim (RAH) on the maternal side. His grandfather, Sheikh Wajihuddin, was an important officer in the army of Shah Jahan who supported Prince Aurangzeb in the war of succession. The forefathers of Shah Waliullah, Shaikh Shamsuddin Mufti came to the subcontinent and settled in Rothak during the initial period of Islamic rule. Although the mark of identification of this family was their command over religious sciences of Islam, one of his family members, Shaikh Mehmood, adopted the profession of a soldier after which tales of bravery remained associated with this family for a long time.
His father, Shah Abdur Raheem was among the leading Hanafi jurists and a distinguished scholar of Islam in Delhi. An expert in theology, he was a student of Allama Meer Zahid Haravi. He never sought the comfort of the material world and was always in pursuit of rewards of the hereafter, a quality that he passed on to his son and his progeny.
The anti-Islamic forces which had raised their head during the reign of the irreligious Emperor Akbar and later found their champions in Jahangir and Dara Shikoh were, to a great extent, checked by Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. With his passing away in 1707 A.C. started the political chaos which later culminated in the disintegration of the Muslim power in the subcontinent. This political disintegration which was the result of spiritual confusion encompassed the socio-economic spheres also. Aurangzeb’s successors were too weak and incapable of facing the rebellious forces emerging on all hands. At such a critical period of Muslim history was born Shah Waliullah, the greatest religious thinker produced by Muslim India who has contributed immensely to the reintegration of the structure of Islam.
Shah Waliullah was born in 1703 A.C. four years before the death of Aurangzeb. His grandfather, Sheikh Wajihuddin, was an important officer in the army of Shah Jahan who supported Prince Aurangzeb in the war of succession. His father, Shah Abdur Rahim, a Sufi and an eminent scholar assisted in the compilation of Fatwa-i-Alamgiri the voluminous code of Islamic law. lie, however, refused an invitation to visit the Emperor and devoted his energies to the organization and teaching at ‘Madrassa Rahimia’ a Theological College which he had established and which, later, played an important part in the religious emancipation of Muslim India and became the breeding ground of religious reformers and ‘Mujahid’ like Shah Waliullah, Shah Abdul Aziz, Syed Ahmad of Bareli, Maulvi Abdul Haiy and Shah Ismail Shaheed. Writing about the teachings of Shah Abdur Rahim and his brother, Maulana Ubaidullah Sindhi observes:
“The essence of the teaching of the two brothers was the effort, to discover a path which could be traversed together by the Muslim philosophers (the Sufis and the Mutakallim) and the Muslim Jurists (Faqih)”.
Education
Shah Waliullah received his early education from his father, who was his teacher as well as his spiritual guide. Being a precocious child with a retentive memory lie committed the Holy Quran to memory at an early age of 7 years. On the death of his father in 1131 A.H. when he was hardly 17 years old he started teaching in his father's Madrassa Rahimiya and carried on the work for 12 years when he left for Arabia for higher studies. He was a brilliant scholar; during fourteen months’ stay in Makkah and Madina he came into contact with the outstanding teachers of Hejaz. His favorite teacher was Sheikh Abu Tahir bin Ibrahim of Madina, from whom he obtained his Sanud (Degree) in Hadis (Tradition). The Sheikh was an erudite scholar, possessing encyclopedic knowledge; Shah Waliullah benefited much from him too and speaks highly of his piety, independence of judgment and scholarly talents.
