al-Ithafat al-Sunniya bil-Ahadith al-Qudsiya wa maahu al-Nafahat al-Salafiya bi Sharh al-Ahadith al-Qudsiya
- Author died
- 1031 AH
- Editions
- Dār Ibn Kathīr
al-Ithafat al-Sunniya bil-Ahadith al-Qudsiya wa maahu al-Nafahat al-Salafiya bi Sharh al-Ahadith al-Qudsiya is a specialized collection of sacred traditions (hadith qudsi) compiled by the Egyptian Shafi'i scholar Abd al-Rauf al-Munawi (952–1031 AH / 1545–1622 CE; also reported as born in 924 AH) , accompanied by an explanatory commentary titled al-Nafahat al-Salafiya by the Syrian Azhari scholar Muhammad Munir al-Dimashqi .
Structure and Scope
The core text, al-Ithafat al-Sunniya, contains 272 sacred hadiths . In his preface, the author names himself as Muhammad, called Taj al-Din al-Munawi al-Haddadi, and explains that he compiled the sacred traditions he had encountered to make them easily accessible . The work is structured alphabetically according to the Arabic letters of the dictionary (huruf al-mu‘jam) . Haji Khalifa noted in Kashf al-Zunun that the material was divided into two chapters: the first for reports opening with the phrasing "God said" (قال الله), and the second for reports containing "His saying, Exalted is He" (قوله تعالى), with both sections arranged in alphabetical sequence .
Method and Content
Al-Munawi presented the hadith texts stripped of their complete chains of transmission (isnad), while attributing each narration to its respective source collections in the hadith literature . The author did not restrict his selection to authentic narrations; he collected the traditions purely on the basis of being sacred hadiths, leaving them largely unclassified according to their level of authenticity and explicitly grading only six narrations in the compilation . Consequently, the work contains authentic (sahih), good (hasan), weak (da‘if), and severely weak or fabricated reports .
Commentary and Editions
The accompanying commentary, al-Nafahat al-Salafiya bi Sharh al-Ahadith al-Qudsiya, was composed by Muhammad Munir al-Dimashqi after religious students requested a dedicated, accessible compendium of sacred hadiths . Locating a manuscript copy of al-Munawi's text in the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya), al-Dimashqi commissioned an Azhari scholar to transcribe it, then collated, edited, and annotated it . His commentary elucidates obscure vocabulary, clarifies meanings, adds brief biographies for select transmitters, and introduces the formal definitions distinguishing sacred hadiths from both standard prophetic hadith and the Quran .
A later critical edition of the joint work was edited by Abd al-Qadir al-Arna’ut and Talib Awwad, who documented the source transmissions, provided systematic hadith verification (takhrij) for the narrations collected by al-Munawi as well as those cited in al-Dimashqi's commentary, and appended brief biographical notices for named figures .
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