al-Manhal al-Rawi fi Mukhtasar Ulum al-Hadith al-Nabawi
- Author died
- 733 AH
- Editions
- دار الفكر
al-Manhal al-Rawi fi Mukhtasar Ulum al-Hadith al-Nabawi ("The Refreshing Source in the Abridgment of the Sciences of the Prophetic Hadith") is a treatise on hadith terminology and methodology by the Shafi'i scholar and chief judge Badr al-Din Ibn Jama'ah (639–733 AH / 1241–1333 CE), abridging and restructuring the standard work on the subject by Ibn al-Salah.
Composition and Purpose
Ibn Jama'ah completed the work in the month of Sha'ban 687 AH in Damascus. It was designed as a refined summary of Ibn al-Salah's Ulum al-Hadith (widely known as Muqaddimat Ibn al-Salah), gathering its core doctrines and terminology while adding supplementary points and organizing its disparate sections into a systematic pedagogical framework.
Structure and Contents
The treatise begins with the opening praise: "All praise belongs to God, who made plain a path to the landmarks of the Sunnah" (الحمد لله الذي أوضح لمعالم السنة سبيلاً). Ibn Jama'ah arranged the text into an introduction (muqaddimah) followed by four major thematic sections (atraf):
- Introduction (al-Muqaddimah): Covers fundamental definitions (al-hadd) and the technical vocabulary employed in hadith scholarship.
- First Section (al-Taraf al-Awwal): Treats the hadith text (al-matn) and its various classifications.
- Second Section (al-Taraf al-Thani): Examines the chain of transmission (al-sanad).
- Third Section (al-Taraf al-Thalith): Discusses the modes and protocols of receiving and transmitting hadith (kayfiyyat al-tahammul).
- Fourth Section (al-Taraf al-Rabi'): Focuses on the names, identities, and biographical categories of narrators (asma' al-rijal).
Reception, Influence, and Commentaries
The work is regarded as one of the best and most coherently structured abridgments of Ibn al-Salah's treatise. It served as a source for later hadith manuals; al-Tibi (d. 743 AH) incorporated material from it alongside Ibn al-Salah's original and al-Nawawi's summary when composing his al-Khulasah fi Ma'rifat al-Hadith, and Abu al-Hasan al-Tabrizi adopted its fourfold thematic division for his al-Kafi fi Ulum al-Hadith.
The author's grandson, Izz al-Din Ibn Jama'ah (d. 819 AH), authored a commentary on the text titled al-Manhaj al-Sawi fi Sharh al-Manhal al-Rawi. In later centuries, the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman ibn Sulayman al-Ahdal (d. 1250 AH) wrote a supercommentary titled al-Manhaj al-Sawi fi Hashiyat al-Manhal al-Rawi.
An autograph manuscript in the author's handwriting is preserved in the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyyah, MS 352 mustalah). The text was edited by Muhyi al-Din Ramadan and published in Cairo in the journal of the Institute of Arabic Manuscripts in May 1975 (Jumada al-Ula 1395 AH), and has also been edited by Jasim ibn Muhammad al-Fujji.
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