al-Qawl al-Maruf fi Fadl al-Maruf
- Author died
- 1033 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Basha'ir al-Islamiyyah li-al-Tiba'ah wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzi'
al-Qawl al-Maruf fi Fadl al-Maruf (The Well-Known Saying on the Virtue of Doing Good) is a treatise in the forty-hadith genre compiled by the Palestinian-born Hanbali jurist and scholar Mari al-Karmi (d. 1033 AH / 1624 CE) .
Composition and Purpose
The treatise was completed in the author's own hand at al-Azhar Mosque in early Dhu al-Hijjah 1031 AH (1622 CE), two years before his death, and dedicated to a prominent figure styled Sadr al-Din Zadah, whom the author addressed with the title Shaykh al-Islam . al-Karmi compiled the work to encourage the performance of acts of benevolence (fil al-maruf) and to foster love for aiding the distressed (ighathat al-malhuf) . Following the established tradition of scholars compiling collections of forty traditions, he cited the narrations promising intercession and reward for those who preserve forty hadiths for the Muslim community .
Content and Sources
The book consists of forty hadiths concerning the merits of charitable deeds, helping others, and relieving distress . The majority of the traditions in the collection were drawn from Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti's hadith compendium al-Jami al-Saghir, with a minority derived from other sources . In the autograph copy, al-Karmi appended an additional concluding note (fa'idah) of approximately sixteen lines elaborating on the topic .
Transmission and Publication
The work is preserved in an autograph manuscript located in Shibam in Hadhramaut, Yemen, comprising 34 pages of medium format with 9 to 10 lines per page in clear Naskh script . Another manuscript copy is held in the Taymuriyya collection at the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya), consisting of five folios .
A critical edition of the text was prepared by Muhammad Abu Bakr Badhib, who provided hadith documentation and commentary drawn largely from al-Munawi's Fayd al-Qadir . This edition was published by Dar al-Basha'ir al-Islamiyyah in Beirut in 1421 AH (2000 CE) as part of the "Liqa al-Ashr al-Awakhir bi-al-Masjid al-Haram" publication series (no. 19) .
Answer updated