al-Minhaj al-Qawim Sharh al-Muqaddima al-Hadramiyya
- Author died
- 974 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmīyah
al-Minhaj al-Qawim Sharh al-Muqaddima al-Hadramiyya (The Straight Path: Commentary on the Hadrami Primer) is a legal manual on Shafiʿi jurisprudence composed by the scholar Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (909–974 AH / 1504–1567 CE; also cited as d. 973 AH) . It serves as an explanatory commentary on al-Muqaddima al-Hadramiyya (also known as Masaʾil al-Taʿlim), an instructional text written by the Yemeni jurist Abdullah ibn Abd al-Rahman Bafadl (850–918 AH / 1446–1512 CE) .
Composition and Purpose
Ibn Hajar al-Haytami notes in the introduction (khutba) of the book that he composed this concise commentary in response to requests from certain righteous acquaintances who asked him to provide an accessible and succinct exposition (sharh latif) of Bafadl's legal primer . The original work by Bafadl had gained widespread prominence following his career as a teacher and mufti at the grand mosque of al-Shihr in Yemen .
Contents and Structure
The work is organized systematically around individual chapters and sections detailing legal rulings according to the Shafiʿi school . The contents include:
- Purification (Taharah): covering disliked, used, and impure water; legal deduction (ijtihad); vessels; innate hygiene practices (khisal al-fitrah); ablution (wudu), its sunan, dislikes, and conditions; wiping over leather socks; nullifiers of ablution; prohibitions during state of ritual impurity; recommended occasions for ablution; etiquettes of relieving oneself; cleansing (istinja); causes, description, and dislikes of ritual bathing (ghusl); impurities and their removal; dry ablution (tayammum), its conditions and pillars; and menstruation, irregular bleeding (istihadah), and postnatal bleeding .
- Prayer (Salah): detailing prayer times, deduction regarding prayer times, prohibited prayer intervals, the call to prayer (adhan), the detailed performance and manner of prayer, and the sunan of the prayer, bowing (ruku), standing upright (iʿtidal), and prostration (sujud) .
Scholarly Reception and Glosses
al-Minhaj al-Qawim became a recognized standard text for intermediate legal instruction within the Shafiʿi tradition . Subsequent scholars composed supercommentaries (hawashi) to unpack its phrasing and legal citations, among the most prominent being the hashiyah of Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Kurdi . The text has been published in multiple editions, including printings featuring the critical editing of Mustafa al-Khin and collaborators .
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