al-Durr al-Mukhtar Sharh Tanwir al-Absar wa Jami al-Bihar
- Author died
- 1088 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah
al-Durr al-Mukhtar Sharh Tanwir al-Absar wa Jami al-Bihar (The Selected Pearls: Commentary on the Illumination of Sights and Confluence of Seas) is a seventeenth-century legal treatise in Hanafi jurisprudence by the Damascene mufti Ala al-Din al-Haskafi (d. 1088 AH / 1677 CE) . Composed as an abridged commentary on Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Tumurtashi's (d. 1004 AH) renowned legal primer Tanwir al-Absar wa Jami al-Bihar, the work is one of the most prominent reference manuals of substantive law (furu al-fiqh) in the late Hanafi school .
Background and Composition
Before compiling al-Durr al-Mukhtar, al-Haskafi had embarked on an extensive, multivolume commentary on Tanwir al-Absar titled Khaza'in al-Asrar wa Bada'i al-Afkar . However, upon completing the fair copy of the first volume, he estimated that the full work would span ten large volumes and was left incomplete, reaching only the section on the witr prayer . Consequently, al-Haskafi turned toward producing a compact commentary, aiming to retain essential legal rulings and precise formulations in a concise volume, which he named al-Durr al-Mukhtar .
Structure, Content, and Style
The work functions as an interlinear commentary (sharh mamzuj) on al-Tumurtashi's base text, covering standard legal subjects such as ritual purity, prayer, financial transactions, marriage, judicial procedure, and penal law . Al-Haskafi synthesized rulings and verifications from earlier foundational texts and late authorities, citing major legal compendia and reference works such as al-Bahr al-Ra'iq, al-Nahr al-Fa'iq, and al-Fayd, alongside authorities like Fakhr al-Din al-Zayla'i and Ibn al-Humam .
The commentary is characterized by extreme conciseness and dense phrasing . While al-Haskafi aimed to select the most authoritative positions (al-arjah) and refine complex legal distinctions using subtle allusions, subsequent scholars noted that its severe brevity sometimes made deciphering its exact purports challenging .
Reception and Supercommentaries
al-Durr al-Mukhtar achieved widespread adoption across the Hanafi legal tradition as an authoritative manual for judicial rulings and fatwa issuance . Owing to its density, several scholars composed extensive marginal glosses (hawashi) to unpack its text:
- Radd al-Muhtar ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar by the Damascene jurist Ibn Abidin (d. 1252 AH / 1836 CE), commonly known as Hashiyat Ibn Abidin, which became the definitive reference of late Hanafi jurisprudence; its incomplete sections were later supplemented by his son in Qurrat Uyun al-Akhyar .
- Hashiyat al-Tahtawi ala al-Durr al-Mukhtar by Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tahtawi (d. 1231 AH) .
The text has been published in multiple independent editions as well as printed alongside its major supercommentaries, notably appearing in standard editions of Radd al-Muhtar and Hashiyat al-Tahtawi .
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