al-Qabas fi Sharh Muwatta Malik ibn Anas
- Author died
- 543 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī
al-Qabas fi Sharh Muwatta Malik ibn Anas (The Firebrand in Commentary on the Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas) is a legal and hadith commentary by the Maliki jurist and judge Abu Bakr Ibn al-Arabi (d. 543 AH / 1148 CE) on the Muwatta of Malik ibn Anas (d. 179 AH / 795 CE) .
Composition and Context
The book is one of Ibn al-Arabi's later works . It was dictated by him from memory at his residence in Cordoba across multiple sessions in the months of 532 AH (1137–1138 CE) . His dictation was recorded and transmitted by several of his students, including Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Hubaysh and Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Hijri, as well as documented through transmitters by Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Yahya ibn Umayra al-Dabbi . The work is also cited under variant titles such as al-Qabas ala Muwatta Malik ibn Anas and al-Qabas min Sharh Malik ibn Anas in the catalog of Ibn Khayr al-Ishbili .
Method and Structure
Ibn al-Arabi opens the work by stating that the Muwatta is the first book authored on Islamic legal ordinances (shara'i' al-Islam) and that no equivalent was composed after it, because Malik established it upon laying legal principles (tamhid al-usul) for substantive rulings (furu') . The commentary follows the transmission of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi (d. 234 AH / 848 CE), which was the standard recension in the Islamic West .
The commentary focuses on concise legal deductions (istinbat al-ahkam al-fiqhiyya) and principles of jurisprudence, resembling the methodological approach of Abu al-Walid al-Baji's al-Muntaqa . Unlike Ibn al-Arabi's larger commentary, al-Masalik fi Sharh Muwatta Malik, which examines narrations word by word, al-Qabas serves as a thematic exposition of the Muwatta's chapters: when multiple narrations within a chapter lead to the same legal ruling, he comments on a single representative report covering the entire chapter .
Ibn al-Arabi organizes the analysis under recurring analytical subheadings, such as:
- Ta'sil (grounding in foundational principles) and Mas'ala usuliyya (legal theoretical issue)
- Tafri' (derivation of branch rulings) and Ilhaq / Istilhaq (legal annexation)
- Kashf wa-Iydah (exposition and clarification)
- Tahqiq lughawi wa-shar'i (linguistic and legal verification)
- Tanbih ala wahm (alerting to an error)
Reception and Manuscripts
al-Qabas has been widely cited by later Maliki commentators, including Muhammad al-Zurqani in his commentary on the Muwatta . Several manuscript copies are preserved, including copies in the National Library of Algiers (dated 636 AH), the General Library of Rabat, the al-Qarawiyyin Library in Fez, and the Nuruosmaniye Library in Istanbul (dated 872 AH) . It was edited by Muhammad Abd Allah Ould Karim and published in Beirut in 1992 .
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