al-Zabidi, Zayn al-Din
- Died
- 893 AH
- Born in
- Zabid
Zayn al-Din al-Zabidi (812–893 AH / 1410–1488 CE) was a Yemeni Hanafi hadith scholar and teacher based in Zabid, best known for his concise hadith compendium al-Tajrid al-Sarih li-Ahadith al-Jami al-Sahih.
Early Life and Lineage
Ahmad ibn Ahmad ibn Abd al-Latif ibn Abi Bakr, given the title Zayn al-Din and the kunya Abu al-Abbas, was the grandson of the scholar Siraj al-Din Abd al-Latif al-Sharji. He was born in Zabid on Friday night, 22 Ramadan 812 AH, though a variant report places his birth in 811 AH; Hamza al-Nashiri affirmed that 812 AH is the correct date as heard directly from al-Zabidi himself. His father died while his mother was pregnant with him, leading to him being named after his father, a naming chosen by Shaykh Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr al-Raddad.
Education and Scholarly Career
Al-Zabidi studied with major scholars who visited or resided in Yemen. Alongside his brother, he heard hadith from Nafis al-Din al-Alawi and Taqi al-Din al-Fasi. He studied directly under Ibn al-Jazari, hearing from him the Sunans of al-Nasa'i and Ibn Majah, the Musnad of al-Shafi'i, and Ibn al-Jazari's own works al-Uddah and al-Hisn. He also heard from Abu al-Fath al-Maraghi and from Zayn al-Din al-Barashki upon the latter's arrival in Yemen with Ibn al-Jazari in 829 AH, receiving texts including al-Muwatta, al-Shifa, and al-Umdah. According to Afif al-Din al-Nashiri, he closely accompanied the pious jurist Sharaf al-Din Abu al-Qasim al-Aslaqi, performing the Hajj and visiting Medina with him in 835 AH and benefiting substantially from his company.
Like his father and grandfather before him, al-Zabidi served as a teacher in the city of Ta'izz. Students read with him in Zabid in 887 AH, and his pupils included the Yemeni historian and traditionist Ibn al-Dayba.
Scholarly Standing and Death
Al-Zabidi was recognized as a prominent Hanafi jurist and held the standing of the foremost hadith scholar (muhaddith) and chief transmitter (musnid) of Yemen in his era. In hadith literature, he authored al-Tajrid al-Sarih li-Ahadith al-Jami al-Sahih (completed in Sha'ban 889 AH), in which he abridged Sahih al-Bukhari by removing duplicate narrations and chains of transmission while restricting the text to uninterrupted, directly attributed (musnad) reports; this work became widely studied and was commented upon by scholars such as Abd Allah al-Sharqawi and Siddiq Hasan Khan. He also authored Tabaqat al-Khawass, a biographical work dedicated specifically to the righteous figures and scholars of Yemen, and compiled the poetry of Ibn al-Muqri into two volumes.
Al-Zabidi died in Zabid in 893 AH (1488 CE).
Answer updated
List of Works
Also commonly known as Mukhtasar Sahih al-Bukhari and completed in 889 AH, this hadith compendium is a concise abridgment of Sahih al-Bukhari. It aims to make the core narrations accessible to readers and memorizers by systematically removing repetitive reports and chains of transmission down to the primary narrator, reducing the original text to less than a quarter of its size while retaining its original book titles.