Shah Rafiuddin Dehlawi

Shah Rafiuddin Dehlawi (1163/1750 – 1233/1818) was a Delhi scholar of hadith and Qur'an commentary, a son of Shah Waliullah al-Dihlawi and younger brother of Shah Abdul Aziz. He completed the first literal, word-for-word Urdu translation of the Qur'an, and in old age succeeded his brother at the teaching seat of the Madrasa Rahimia ¹.

His full name was Rafiuddin Abd al-Wahhab ibn Wali Allah ibn Abd al-Rahim al-Umari al-Dihlawi; the Urdu article takes the form of his name from Abd al-Hayy al-Lakhnawi's Nuzhat al-Khawatir ¹. He studied under his elder brother Abdul Aziz ². About twenty works are counted to him, among them the Qur'an commentary Tafsir Rafi'i, the polemical Daf' al-Batil (also read Damgh al-Batil), Asrar al-Mahabba, Rah Najat, al-Takmil and Muqaddimat al-Ilm; his literal Urdu rendering of the Qur'an, finished in 1200 AH, is judged his greatest achievement, and he succeeded to the family's teaching seat when his brother grew old ¹.

Two independent accounts attest Sufi discipleship for Rafiuddin himself: the Arabic article, in the al-Zirikli tradition, states that he took the Sufi path from Shaykh Muhammad Ashiq ibn Ubayd Allah al-Bahattli ², and the Urdu article presents a scholar of dervish character whose works include the Sufi treatise Asrar al-Mahabba ¹. Neither names his order, and no consulted source names a legal school for him personally; the Dehlawi family's Hanafi tradition is the context he taught in, not an attestation about the man.

The two articles agree on his Hijri dates and split on their Gregorian pairings: birth 1163 is paired with 1750 in the Urdu article (on the Urdu Encyclopaedia of Islam) and with 1749 in the Arabic article, and death 1233 is paired with 1818 and 1817 respectively ^{1 2}. Two unmerged Wikidata items divide the same way — Q25550023 (1750–1818) serves the Urdu article and Q12213581 (1749, no death) the Arabic one ^{3 4}. His father Shah Waliullah's record in the museum is a draft stub; the child edge recorded here rests on the articles and Q25550023 alone.