[23] He studied under Ahmad al-Marzuqi al-Maliki al-Makki [ar] (Arabic: أحمد المرزوقي المالكي المكي)[24] and also under Muhammad Sayyid Quds, the previous Shafi'i Mufti of Mecca, Abdullah Siraj al-Hanqi, Yusuf al-Sawy al-Masri al-Maliki, the Maliki Mufti of Mecca and Abd al-Rahman al-Jabarti.

[25] Ahmad Zayni Dahlan is frequently considered as one of the most important religious figures of the Meccan landscape in the 19th century.

Among them were Hussein bin Ali,[13][14] Sharif of Mecca who studied the Qur'an with him and completed its memorization, Ahmed Raza Khan Barelvi,[33] Khalil Ahmad Saharanpuri,[34] Sheikh Mustafa, Usman bin Yahya, Arsyad Thawil al-Bantani,[18] Muhammad Amrullah, Sayyid Abi Bakr Syata,[35] and Ahmad b. Hasan al-'Attas.

[9] In his treatise against Wahhabi influence, he viewed Sufism as a legal and integral part of Islamic practice – including such aspects as Tawassul (intercession, or addressing God through an intermediary),[Note 1] Tabarruk (seeking blessings through persons or things), and Ziyarat al-Qubur (the visitation of tombs and graves).

[25] Similar to his vehement criticism of Wahhabism, he also targeted the Qarmatians, a radical Shiite movement that operated in the 10th century and attacked pilgrims traveling to Mecca for Hajj.

[41] He supported Muhammad Ahmad in the Mahdist War, seeing his fight against Khedive Tawfiq (1852–1892) and the British Empire as a bulkwark against Western imperialism.

[42][49][50] He was also influential in supporting anti-imperialism in the Dutch East Indies (modern-day Indonesia)[28][51][52][53][54] and more generally, in Southeast Asia.

[61]He wrote and taught in an era when the first printing press came to Mecca, one of the concerns of Ahmad Zayni Dahlan was to be able to explain the text of the Quran in more simple ways, to be understood by everyone.

[62] To fulfill this goal, he also wrote rhetoric manuals for young learners based on the Quran and treaties of mantiq.

He wrote, for instance, a booklet outlining the suffering Wahhabis brought to Mecca during their rule in the first quarter of the nineteenth century, Fitnat al-Wahhabiyyah (Arabic: فتنة الوهابية, lit.