al-Nukat ala Muqaddimat Ibn al-Salah lil-Zarkashi
- Author died
- 794 AH
- Editions
- Aḍwāʾ al-Salaf
al-Nukat ala Muqaddimat Ibn al-Salah is a work on hadith terminology and methodology by the Shafi'i scholar and jurist Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi (d. 794 AH / 1392 CE), written as a critical commentary and set of marginal notes (nukat) on Ibn al-Salah's (d. 643 AH) foundational treatise Ulum al-Hadith (commonly known as Muqaddimat Ibn al-Salah) .
Background and Purpose
In his introduction, al-Zarkashi praises Ibn al-Salah’s work as having gathered the scattered insights of earlier authorities on hadith terminology, such as al-Hakim al-Naysaburi, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, and al-Ramahurmuzi, noting that later scholars largely confined themselves to abridging it .
Al-Zarkashi explains that his motivation arose after his teacher, Ala al-Din Mughultay, informed him that a Maghribi student had mentioned a work titled Islah Kitab Ibn al-Salah by Shams al-Din Ibn al-Labban, which Mughultay searched for throughout his life without finding . Mughultay then began his own glosses under that title, but al-Zarkashi found that it addressed only a small portion of the book without providing an exhaustive treatment . Consequently, al-Zarkashi composed his work as a comprehensive commentary (taʿlīq) to resolve ambiguous passages, clarify obscure points, and provide necessary vocalizations and definitions for problematic proper names, lineages, and linguistic terms .
Method and Sources
The book proceeds sequentially through the text and categories of Ibn al-Salah's treatise, extracting specific phrases to expand upon their lexical meanings, grammatical aspects, and technical definitions . Al-Zarkashi integrates relevant chains of transmission, rulings on hadith authenticity, and citations of classical literature and historical reports .
Among the earlier sources cited in the work is Tadqiq al-Inayah fi Tahqiq al-Riwayah by Ibn al-Salah's contemporary, Ibrahim ibn Abd Allah al-Hamawi (known as Ibn Abi al-Dam, d. 642 AH), with whom al-Zarkashi engages on various technical disputes .
Publication
The book was edited and studied by Zayn al-Abidin Balafrij as a master's thesis submitted to the Islamic University of Madinah in 1406 AH, and was subsequently published by Maktabat Adwa al-Salaf in Riyadh in three volumes, accompanied by a fourth volume dedicated to introductory study and analytical indices (1st edition, 1419 AH) .
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