Scott Kugle
Online event
Wednesday, 20. May 2026, 19:00-20:30
Recording link
Kenncode: nF2JUGw&
Zoom Webinar Link
Abstract
At the center of an inter-regional network of reformist Muslim scholars who were Sufi mystics in India and Arabia was the 16th century CE Sufi master, Shaykh ʿAli Muttaqi. He fled India when the Mughal Empire was expanding and lived out his years in Mecca. He and his followers revived hadith studies in Mughal India, especially Shaykh Abd al-Haqq Muhaddith Dihlawi. ʿAli Muttaqi is famous in hadith studies for his compilation Kanz al- ʿUmmal, which combined al-Suyuti’s al-Jamiʿ al-Kabir and al-Jamiʿ al- Saghir organized by chapters related to legal issues. This work, which he continued to edit on his deathbed, prompted some to say, “The whole world is grateful to al-Suyuti, but al-Suyuti himself is grateful to ʿAli Muttaqi.“ He considered himself an heir of al-Suyuti through Ibn Hajar al-Haythami, from whom he learned hadith and to whom he gave Sufi initiation. While Sufism and hadith studies are often portrayed as separate fields by both modern Islamic reformers and Western scholars, for ʿAli Muttaqi and followers, these fields were integrally connected. They are mentioned in every account of Islamic reform in South Asia and in every biographical collection of Muslim scholars, however their Sufi affiliations are often obscured and their spiritual activities are often ignored in favor of assessing their importance to hadith. This talk will illustrate their contribution to Sufism on the one hand, and also explain their involvement in social and political affairs on the other, based on rare manuscript sources in Arabic, Persian and Urdu that are yet unpublished.
Bio
Scott Kugle is a Professor in the Department of Middle Eastern and South Asian Studies at Emory University in Atlanta, USA. His fields of expertise include Sufism, Islamic society in South Asia, and the ethics of gender and sexuality diversity. He is the author of nine books, and relevant to this presentation are Hajj to the Heart: Sufi Journeys across the Indian Ocean (2022), Rebel Between Spirit and Law: Ahmad Zarruq, Juridical Sainthood and Authority in Islam (2006), and Sufis and Saint’s Bodies: Corporeality and Sacred Power in Islam (2007). He conducts research primarily in India, Pakistan, and Morocco while his research languages are Arabic, Urdu, and Persian.