al-Risala li-Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani - Nuskhat al-Tatai
- Author died
- 386 AH
- Editions
- Institute of Arabic Manuscripts - Digital Library
al-Risala li-Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani - Nuskhat al-Tatai (The Treatise of Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani – al-Tatai's Recension) is an edition of the foundational Maliki legal treatise al-Risala by Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani (310–386 AH / 922–996 CE), compiled from the text preserved and explained in the commentary of Shams al-Din al-Tatai (d. 942 AH / 1535 CE) .
Background and Transmission
The core text, al-Risala, was composed by Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani as an introductory compendium of Maliki jurisprudence, doctrine, and ethics, widely circulated and studied across the Islamic world . The Egyptian Maliki jurist Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Tatai wrote an extensive commentary on it titled Tanwir al-maqala fi hall alfaz al-Risala (Illuminating the Discourse in Resolving the Wording of al-Risala) .
In Tanwir al-maqala, al-Tatai established a distinct recension of the text of al-Risala, documenting textual variants across different manuscript copies and narrations of the work . Later scholars relied on al-Tatai's textual verification; notably, Ali ibn Ahmad al-Adawi frequently cited al-Tatai's readings and textual notes in his supercommentary on Kifayat al-talib al-rabbani when adjudicating conflicting manuscript readings .
Modern Edition and Apparatus
This edition was assembled and edited by Ibrahim Ahmad Ibrahim al-Sinnari and published as part of the al-Silsila al-Muhkama series . The editor reconstructed the matn of al-Risala as cited and parsed by al-Tatai in Tanwir al-maqala, collating it against two standalone manuscript copies of al-Risala and comparing it with the matn preserved in five other major commentaries .
The edition includes an accompanying marginal gloss titled Sabil ahl al-basala ila gharib al-Risala (The Path of the Valiant to the Rare Expressions of al-Risala) . This apparatus provides:
- Clarifications of rare or difficult vocabulary (gharib) and derivations of unfamiliar words .
- Grammatical notes (i'rab) addressing complex phrasing within the text .
- Disambiguation of ambiguous references (mubhamaat) and explicit identification of the referents of implied pronouns (mudmarat) to make the edition self-sufficient without immediate recourse to extended commentaries .
Answer updated