البدور البازغة في الكلام وأسرار الشريعة

al-Budur al-Bazighah fi al-Kalam wa-Asrar al-Shari'ah

An important Arabic work by the great Indian scholar and reformer Shāh Walī Allāh Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥīm al-Dihlawī (1114–1176 AH / 1703–1762 CE), exploring questions of Islamic theology, philosophical wisdom, human nature, and the underlying purposes and wisdoms of religion and revealed law. Bibliographers class it among Shāh Walī Allāh’s principal writings on uṣūl al-dīn and asrār al-sharīʿah, and its subject matter is closely related to that of his celebrated Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah.

The work is distinctive in that it does not follow the conventional arrangement of a manual of ʿaqīdah or kalām. Instead, Shāh Walī Allāh seeks to investigate some of the deeper intellectual foundations underlying human nature, religion and divine legislation. His approach brings together Kalām, philosophical reasoning, spiritual psychology and the study of the wisdoms of the Sharīʿah, reflecting his broader attempt to explain how revelation corresponds to the constitution of the human being and to the requirements of individual and social life. Academic descriptions have accordingly noted the book's combination of ʿilm al-kalām with discussions related to Taṣawwuf and spiritual formation.

The present edition arranges the material under four interconnected treatises: Masāʾil min al-Ḥikmah (questions of wisdom); Ṭabāʾiʿ Banī Ādam (the dispositions and nature of mankind); a discussion of the human being in terms of his proximity to truth and distance from falsehood; and Bayān al-Milal wa’l-Sharāʾiʿ (an exposition of religions and revealed laws). Through these discussions, the author examines the constitution and tendencies of the human being, the relationship between moral and spiritual development and divine guidance, and the principles underlying the establishment of religious communities and revealed systems of law.

Al-Budūr al-Bāzighah is therefore particularly valuable for readers interested in Shāh Walī Allāh's intellectual system and his philosophy of religion and Sharīʿah. While Ḥujjat Allāh al-Bālighah remains his most famous treatment of the wisdoms and purposes behind Islamic teachings, the present work approaches closely related questions from a more explicitly philosophical and theological perspective. It provides an important window into his attempt to integrate the rational, theological and spiritual sciences into a unified explanation of man, revelation and religious law.

This new Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, Beirut edition has been critically prepared by Muḥammad Saʿīd Anwar al-Maẓāhirī al-Samastīfūrī. Published in 1446 AH / 2025 CE, it is the first edition, comprising 336 pages in a single hardback volume.