[12] Nazeer Husain advocated political quietism and was among a large number of Muslim scholars from both the Sunni and Shia sects who supported British rule and rejected calls for armed jihad against it.
[14] During the Indian Rebellion of 1857, he resisted pressure from the mutineers to call for a jihad and instead declared in favour of British rule, viewing the Muslim-British relationship as a legal contract which could not be broken unless their religious rights were breached.
[19] However, their zealous opposition against co-religionists and non-Muslims alike, to the extent of using violence against mosques and shrines, and their strong anti-polytheist, anti-innovation, anti-Shia and anti-Christian message in close resemblance to the followers of Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab (1703–1792), did not stop other Muslim groups from denouncing them as Wahhabis.
[20] Husain taught hadith at Delhi for half a century,[21] gaining international renown in this field and attracting students from different parts of India, Afghanistan, Central Asia,[3] the Hijaz and Najd.
[24] Husain held together a network of 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.
[4] 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.
[26] 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.