al-Kanz al-Akbar min al-Amr bil-Maruf wal-Nahy an al-Munkar - Ibn Dawud al-Hanbali
- Author died
- 856 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah
al-Kanz al-Akbar min al-Amr bil-Maʿruf wal-Nahy ʿan al-Munkar (The Greatest Treasure Concerning Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil) is an extensive Arabic treatise on Islamic ethics and legal duty by the Hanbali scholar Ibn Dawud al-Hanbali (782–856 AH / 1380–1452 CE) . Spanning two volumes, it examines the legal rulings, spiritual virtues, and practical etiquettes of enjoining right and forbidding wrong .
Scope and Methodology
The work provides comprehensive guidance for those who enjoin good and forbid evil, framing the obligation not only as an external regulatory act but as an internal discipline rooted in sincere counsel and spiritual purification . Ibn Dawud substantiates each discussion with Quranic verses, prophetic traditions, and narrations from the Companions .
Among the specific qualities and behavioral codes detailed in the book are:
- Sincerity in offering advice to the entire community (qasd al-nush li-jamiʿ al-ummah) .
- Feeling genuine sorrow over a fellow Muslim's transgression rather than rejoicing in one's own reward for correcting them .
- Concealing faults and shielding private flaws (satr al-ʿawrat wal-ʿuyub) .
- Humility, mildness, and avoiding arrogance or transgressing against others, drawing upon authorities such as Ibn Taymiyyah's Iqtida' al-Sirat al-Mustaqim (The Requirement of the Straight Path) .
- Protective jealousy for the sanctity of religion and fellow Muslims (al-ghayrah ʿala al-muslimin) .
Ibn Dawud also incorporated extensive uncredited excerpts from Ibn al-Qayyim's Madarij al-Salikin (Ranks of the Seekers) across various sections of the work .
Reception and Editions
al-Kanz al-Akbar is regarded as Ibn Dawud's most prominent composition . The Hanbali jurist Bakr Abu Zayd praised it as an exceptionally useful and comprehensive reference, remarking that he had not encountered a broader exposition or one containing more detailed issues in the literature dedicated to enjoining good and forbidding evil .
The text was edited as an academic thesis at Umm al-Qura University and was later published in Beirut by Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyyah (1417 AH / 1996 CE), edited by Mustafa Uthman Samidah .
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