H. V. Sheshadri

“In the wake of the collapse of the military and political power of Islam in Bharat, it was Shah Walilullah Dehlavi (1703-1762) who rose to launch the fanatically revivalist Wahabi movement among the Muslims here. Wahabism upheld the puritanic traditions prevailing during the times of the Prophet and the first four Khalifas. He assigned to jehad a dynamic role “‘like a surgical operation on a pestering sore’ for establishing a universal Khalifa, whose effective authority would hold down various rulers of the decadent societies all over the world.”