scholars who aligned themselves to the teachings of Ahmad Sirhindi and Shah Waliullah Dehlawi, but were more uncompromising in their rejection of what they believed were blameworthy innovations in the faith and the legitimacy given to the four Sunni schools of law. The solicitude of the British also gained Husain favour among modernist Muslims associated with the Aligarh Institute, whose Aligarh Institute Gazette dedicated an obituary praising him when he died in 1902 at the age of ninety-seven. Teachings The teachings of Nazeer Husain and Siddiq Hasan Khan were shaped amidst broader reformist developments in South Asia which saw the Muslims of India as having drifted away from 'authentic' Islamic beliefs and practices that compromised the Islamic concept of the indivisible oneness of God and bordered on idolatry. For guidance on religious matters, however, in contrast to other reformist currents in India, they advocated direct use of the central Islamic scriptures: the Quran and hadith – which they interpreted literally and narrowly – rather than looking to the classical lawmakers and the legal traditions of Islam that developed around them. Accordingly, Husain was known for his emphasis on the primacy of the Prophetic traditions as the source of Islamic law over deference (taqlid) given to the Sunni legal schools and for the opposition to popular rituals and folk practices associated with the Sufis which were deemed to be illegitimate innovations in the faith. Although Husain himself has been seen as less literalist and more favourably inclined towards Sufism than later exponents of the Ahl-i Hadith, demanding an oath of allegiance (bay'ah) from his disciples, a practice commonly associated with Sufism, and even praising Ibn Arabi, a colossus among Sufis. Nevertheless, overall, these teachings resulted in the development of close ties with Wahhabi scholars but strong controversy between the Ahl-i Hadith and the Deobandis who upheld strict adherence to the Hanafi school. Notable students and influence According to author Charles Allen, among Syed Nazeer Husain's students were Imdadullah Muhajir Makki, Muhammad Qasim Nanotvi and Rashid Ahmad Gangohi, the founding figures of the Deobandi movement; although prominent Deobandi scholars including Mufti Muhammad Taqi Usmani have issued fatwas against him. Husain is also considered by some scholars to have had an influence on Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, the founder of the Ahmadiyya movement, whose second marriage Husain had performed in 1884, though Ghulam Ahmad never studied under him. Prior to pledging his allegiance to