al-Shafi fi Sharh Musnad al-Shafii
- Author died
- 606 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Rushd
al-Shafi fi Sharh Musnad al-Shafii (The Healing Remedy in Explaining the Musnad of al-Shafii) is an extensive hadith commentary by the Shafi'i scholar and philologist Majd al-Din Abu al-Saadat Ibn al-Athir (544–606 AH / 1149–1210 CE), written to explain the traditions gathered in Musnad al-Shafii .
Background and Purpose
The base text, Musnad al-Shafii, is a collection of hadiths transmitted by al-Shafii (d. 204 AH / 820 CE) through his student al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman al-Muradi and compiled by Abu al-Abbas Muhammad ibn Ya'qub al-Asamm from al-Shafii's various legal works, such as Kitab al-Umm, al-Risala, and Ikhtilaf al-Hadith .
In his introduction, Ibn al-Athir observed that despite the prominence and elevated transmission of the Musnad, earlier scholars had not produced a dedicated commentary on it . He noted that although Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi had collected and evaluated al-Shafii's narrations in his work al-Sunan wa-l-Athar, al-Bayhaqi had treated them in terms of chains of transmission (isnad) and legal derivation (fiqh) rather than adopting the comprehensive approach of a textual commentator . Ibn al-Athir therefore set out to author an all-encompassing commentary addressing the meanings, legal deductions, and linguistic aspects of the collection .
Structure and Method
Ibn al-Athir prefaced the commentary with a biography of al-Shafii structured into ten chapters covering his lineage, virtues, and scholarship .
For the commentary itself, Ibn al-Athir adhered to the existing arrangement and sequence of the Musnad, explaining the narrations book by book and tradition by tradition . His method includes:
- Omitting the intermediate chains of transmission between himself and al-Shafii to maintain conciseness, opening each report with the formula "al-Shafii informed us" on the authority of al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman .
- Elucidating each tradition in light of the specific legal branch, category, and chapter intended by al-Shafii and understood by authorities of the Shafi'i school .
- Supplementing the text with additional narrations transmitted by al-Shafii in his early and later treatises that were omitted from al-Asamm's compilation, in order to demonstrate the broader scope of al-Shafii's hadith output, without expanding the main commentary to those added reports .
Reception and Influence
The work is recorded in bibliographical literature under the title al-Shafi fi Sharh Musnad al-Shafii, as well as Shafi al-Iyy fi Sharh Musnad al-Shafii and Sharh al-Musnad . Haji Khalifa recorded the work as comprising five volumes .
Later scholars utilized and quoted the commentary; Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani cited Ibn al-Athir's commentary on the Musnad in Fath al-Bari, including his discussion of the timing of the shortening of prayer during travel . When Sanjar al-Jawali (d. 745 AH / 1344 CE) rearranged Musnad al-Shafii by legal chapters, he drew together material from the commentaries of Ibn al-Athir and Abu al-Qasim al-Rafi'i .
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