WALĪ ALLĀH, SHĀH. Shāh Walī Allāh (AH 1114–1176/1703–1762 CE), Quṭb al-Dīn Aḥmad, was born in a village called Phulit in the district of Muzaffarnagar and was raised in Delhi under the close supervision of his father, Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥīm, an erudite scholar-educator, Ṣūfī, and accomplished jurist, and one of the compilers of Fatāwā-i ʿĀlamgīrī, a major work on Ḥanafī fiqh, commissioned by the Mughal emperor Awrangzeb (r. 1658–1707).

Walī Allāh memorized the entire text of the Qurʾān by the age of seven; studied the texts of the Qurʾān and ḥadīth (prophet's sayings); and was initiated into three Ṣūfī orders, the Chishtīyah, Qādirīyah, and Naqshbandīyah, by his father. In 1719, after his father's death, Walī Allāh...