al-Mujalla fi Sharh al-Qawaid al-Muthla fi Sifat Allah wa Asmaihi al-Husna
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- Dār Ibn Ḥazm
al-Mujalla fi Sharh al-Qawaid al-Muthla fi Sifat Allah wa Asmaihi al-Husna (The Clarifier: Commentary on the Exemplary Principles Concerning Allah's Attributes and Beautiful Names) is a theological treatise authored by the Qatari scholar Kamila al-Kuwari, providing an extensive commentary and gloss on al-Qawaid al-Muthla fi Sifat Allah wa Asmaihi al-Husna by Muhammad ibn Salih al-Uthaymeen .
Background and Composition
The base text, al-Qawaid al-Muthla, was written by Ibn al-Uthaymeen to systematize the principles of Sunni theology regarding the divine names and attributes, drawing on the formulations of classical theologians such as Ibn Taymiyyah and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya . Al-Kuwari composed her commentary after studying the work and discussing with Ibn al-Uthaymeen the need for an explanatory gloss to clarify its concepts and terminology for students of knowledge .
In the introductory section of the work, al-Kuwari included a poetic dedication addressed to Ibn al-Uthaymeen outlining her motives for the project, followed by versified renderings of the ninety-nine divine names and the fundamental rules governing the names, attributes, and their textual evidences to facilitate memorization .
Structure and Methodology
The work addresses three primary categories established in the root text: rules concerning the divine names, rules concerning the divine attributes, and principles governing the scriptural evidence for both, followed by responses to allegorical interpretation (taʾwīl) and deviant doctrines .
Al-Kuwari adopted a bifurcated structural method:
- Footnotes and marginal glosses: Brief clarifications, grammatical parsing, and concise lexical definitions directly underneath the primary text .
- Appendices (malāḥiq): Separate, expansive analytical treatises appended after each chapter or rule to address extensive doctrinal disputes, divergent scholastic opinions, and detailed hadith verification without overwhelming the flow of the primary reading—a format she modeled after Abbas Hasan's methodology in al-Nahw al-Wafi .
Her method includes the documentation and exegetical sourcing of all Quranic verses; the grading of hadiths and historical reports using classical biographical evaluation (al-jarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl), adhering to the convention of citing solely Sahih al-Bukhari or Sahih Muslim when a narration appears therein; and the literary analysis of poetic citations embedded in the text . In theological argumentation, she drew broadly upon Sunni reference works alongside texts from the Ash'ari, Maturidi, and Mu'tazili schools of speculative theology (kalām) to engage interlocutors with arguments recognized within their own traditions .
Reception and Publication
The commentary received commendations from contemporary scholars, including Abu Abd Allah ibn Abd Allah al-Qarani in 1420 AH and Abd al-Rahman al-Salih al-Mahmud in 1420 AH, who praised its command of auxiliary sciences such as grammar, morphology, and rhetoric alongside creed . The book also reprints the original approbation written by Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz for the source text in 1404 AH .
The first edition of the book was published in 1422 AH / 2002 CE by Dar Ibn Hazm in a single volume .
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