What Did Sheikh Wajihuddin Alavi Write? A Guide to 67 Recorded Works

Sheikh Wajihuddin Alavi’s intellectual legacy

Sheikh Wajihuddin Alavi Gujrati was remembered not only as a Sufi guide and teacher, but as a scholar who wrote across Qur’anic interpretation, hadith, law, logic, language and spirituality. A circulated list attributes 79 books and commentaries to him. The most careful way to present that claim is to begin with the catalogue in Mohammad Khalid’s 2011 doctoral thesis and to distinguish works the researcher could locate from titles known only through earlier records.

That gives 67 catalogue entries in the thesis section inspected for this article. This number is more defensible than treating every line in the circulated 79-item list as a separate surviving book. That larger list contains repetitions, alternative forms and damaged transliterations. It may also combine material from other inventories.

Why so many works are commentaries

Many titles begin with hashiyah, meaning a scholarly gloss or marginal commentary. In the manuscript culture of Sheikh Wajihuddin’s time, a hashiyah was a serious form of scholarship. It could clarify difficult language, test an argument, compare authorities and guide advanced students through a standard text.

The catalogue therefore reflects the life of a teacher. A commentary on al-Baydawi belongs to the study of tafsir; a work connected with Nuzhat al-Nazar belongs to hadith methodology; titles on al-Talwih, Ibn al-Hajib and inheritance concern law and its principles. Other works engage logic, theology, grammar, rhetoric and Sufi teaching.

The 23 works located in the 2011 study

Khalid states that this group comprised nineteen Arabic works and four Persian works. The descriptions record the research situation in 2011; they do not prove that every manuscript remains at the same institution today. Romanized titles below are reading aids rather than a new critical edition.

What these surviving records reveal

Qur’anic interpretation

The commentaries associated with al-Baydawi and the Risalah fi al-Tafsir place Sheikh Wajihuddin within a tradition of close reading and explanation. A commentary is not the base work itself: al-Baydawi wrote the tafsir, while Sheikh Wajihuddin is associated with a gloss upon it.

Hadith and law

The catalogue includes a commentary related to Nuzhat al-Nazar and Nukhbat al-Fikr, texts associated with Ibn Hajar’s hadith methodology. Legal works address prayer, inheritance and the principles of jurisprudence. Their range helps explain why later accounts remember Wajihuddin as both a spiritual teacher and an accomplished scholar.

Logic, theology and language

Works on al-Mawaqif, al-Qushji, al-Jami and other instructional texts belong to the advanced curriculum of the period. These titles illuminate the intellectual world of the Ahmedabad madrasa more reliably than a simple total alone.

Tasawwuf and devotional life

Haqiqat Muhammadiyyah, the Awrad and the recorded Malfuzat bring spiritual teaching into the catalogue. An awrad collection preserves regular devotions; malfuzat records sayings and conversations. Neither label by itself proves that a surviving manuscript is in the author’s own hand.

Additional titles recorded without a located copy

The thesis separately lists the following titles for which the researcher had not located manuscripts. “Unlocated” does not mean that a work never existed, and it does not mean that a copy cannot later be found. It means the title should not be advertised as presently available without a current catalogue record.

How the circulated 79-item list should be used

The circulated list is valuable as a lead for further research, but it should not be published as 79 independently verified books. It repeats Risalah fi Mas’alat al-Takfir, separates variant forms that may describe the same work, and contains spellings that make the underlying Arabic or Persian title uncertain. Some entries also need clearer separation between a base text, its commentary and a gloss on that commentary.

A responsible digital catalogue should add four fields to every title: the original-script title, subject, manuscript library and shelfmark, and the source that attributes it to Sheikh Wajihuddin. Where a scan exists, its opening folio and colophon should be checked. This work can gradually turn a devotional list into a useful scholarly finding aid.

Sources

1. Mohammad Khalid, Life and Works of Sheikh Wajihuddin Alavi Gujrati, PhD thesis, Department of Arabic, Aligarh Muslim University, 2011, printed pp. 257–260 (PDF pp. 294–297). The original page images were inspected for the division between located and unlocated works.
2. Khalid, printed pp. 269 onward (PDF pp. 306 onward), for his discussion of selected works and manuscript descriptions. Individual manuscript claims require their own catalogue verification.
3. Mustafa Husain Alvi, The Sun in a Candle: Life and Teachings of Hazrat Shah Wajeehuddin Alvi, English edition consulted, especially pp. 47 and 83. Its estimates and family recollections are read alongside the thesis rather than treated as a separate manuscript census.

Editorial note: transliteration has been regularized for readability. Where the thesis scan or the circulated English list remains ambiguous, the title is provisional. Readers with manuscript evidence or a library shelfmark are invited to share it with Al-Hashmi for a future verified catalogue.