"Shah Wali Allah had been a late addition to his family. His father, Shah 'Abd al-Rahim, had long been one of the most respected in the Mughal real, and his talents and austere piety had won him and then cost him royal favor decades before his most famous son was born. When Shah Wali Allah was five, his father placed him in the school he supervised, and by seven the boy had memorized the Qur'an. He mastered Arabic and Persian letters soon thereafter and was married at fourteen. A childhood spent studying at his father's feet meant that by sixteen he had completed the standard curriculum of law, theology and logic along with arithmetic and geometry. A year later, Shah Wali Allah would recall poignantly, his father and greatest teacher 'Voyaged onward to the above of God's mercy.' The young student's ambition to seek ilm remained strong, and by nineteen he had exhausted the Knowledge of Dehli's scholars. So Shah Wali Allah voyaged across the Indian Ocean to perform his hajj pilgrimage and pursue his studies in the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. In the Prophet's mosque in Medina, at the feet of scholars from across the Muslim world, he studied a book to which he became exceedingly attached and which he viewed as the foundation for understanding the Prophet's Sunna. It was the Muwatta, the 'Well Trodden Path,' of the eight-century scholar of Medina,."
More by Shah Waliullah Dehlawi
See allResonant Thoughts
"Washington knows no heresy in the Third World but independence. In the case of Salvador Allende independence came clothed in an especially provocative costume—a Marxist constitutionally elected who co…"
Explore Further
Related Quotes
"You are a very interesting case, General. Do you know what fat file of evidence we have against you here?"
— Heinrich Müller (Gestapo)"It's like catching a fish, you know what I mean? It's the fish that's beautiful, not the fisherman. And I t…"
— Josh Homme"Many people say that I don't know how to draw because I don't draw particular forms. When will they underst…"
— Paul Gauguin"Well I think that progress is not possible without deviation. And I think that it's important that people b…"
— Frank Zappa"You notice for the first time that she has freckles. You didn't know they still made them."
— Jay McInerney"Young man,the conversation was between Lord Trask and myself. And when someone says something you don't und…"
— H. Beam Piper