al-Idda Sharh al-Umda
- Author died
- 624 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Hadith
al-Idda Sharh al-Umda (al-ʿUdda Sharḥ al-ʿUmda) is a classical commentary on Ibn Qudama’s foundational Hanbali legal primer Umdat al-Fiqh, authored by the Hanbali jurist Baha al-Din al-Maqdisi (556–624 AH / 1161–1227 CE) .
Context and Authorship
The text was written as an explanation of Umdat al-Fiqh, an introductory legal manual authored by Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudama (d. 620 AH / 1223 CE) that restricts itself to a single transmitted position in the Hanbali school to facilitate study for beginners . The author, Abu Muhammad Abd al-Rahman ibn Ibrahim ibn Ahmad al-Saʿdi al-Maqdisi (known as Bahaʾ al-Din), was a direct student of Ibn Qudama who studied jurisprudence under him and understood his scholarly objectives .
The work is documented across classical biographical dictionaries, including mentions by Ibn Rajab in Dhayl Tabaqat al-Hanabila, al-Dhahabi in Siyar Aʿlam al-Nubalaʾ, Burhan al-Din Ibn Muflih in al-Maqsad al-Arshad, Mujir al-Din al-ʿUlaymi, Ibn Tulun in al-Qalaʾid al-Jawhariyya, and Ismaʿil Pasha al-Baghdadi in Hadiyyat al-ʿArifin .
Method and Structure
al-Idda serves as a concise, single-volume commentary (sharḥ mukhtaṣar) that covers the chapters of Hanbali jurisprudence . While Ibn Taymiyya authored an expansive, multi-volume commentary on the same base text that remained incomplete after the chapter of pilgrimage, Bahaʾ al-Din's commentary is much more concise and spans the entirety of the legal compendium .
In his methodology, Bahaʾ al-Din divides the base text into specific legal issues (masʾala), providing textual evidence from the Quran, prophetic Hadith, and consensus (ijmāʿ), along with legal reasoning and rationales for the school's rulings . Ibn Rajab noted that at the beginning of the work, in the chapter of purification, the author records that water does not become impure unless its characteristics change unconditionally .
Manuscripts and Editions
Surviving manuscript copies of the work include a codex preserved in the Municipal Library of Alexandria (MS 1128 B), comprising 197 folios written in 768 AH by the scribe Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ahmad al-Baʿli al-Hanbali, with microfilms and reproductions held at the Institute of Arabic Manuscripts of the Arab League, the Islamic University of Madinah, and the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies .
The commentary has been published in multiple modern editions, including:
- An edition printed by al-Matbaʿa al-Salafiyya (second edition, 1382 AH) .
- A critical edition edited by Dr. Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Muhsin al-Turki, published by Muʾassasat al-Risala in Beirut (1421 AH / 2000 CE) .
- An edition edited by Ahmad ibn Ali, published by Dar al-Hadith in Cairo (1424 AH / 2003 CE) .
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