al-Tawdih al-Abhar li-Tadhkirat Ibn al-Mulaqqin fi Ilm al-Athar
- Author died
- 902 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat Adwa' al-Salaf
al-Tawdih al-Abhar li-Tadhkirat Ibn al-Mulaqqin fi Ilm al-Athar (The Most Luminous Clarification of Ibn al-Mulaqqin’s Reminder in the Science of Traditions) is a concise commentary on hadith terminology by the Egyptian polymath Shams al-Din al-Sakhawi (831–902 AH / 1428–1497 CE). It expounds the concise primer al-Tadhkirah fi Ulum al-Hadith (The Reminder in Hadith Sciences), which Siraj al-Din Ibn al-Mulaqqin (d. 804 AH / 1401 CE) had abridged from his own comprehensive treatise, al-Muqni fi Ulum al-Hadith.
Composition and Context
Al-Sakhawi composed the work upon request while residing in Mecca during the year 900 AH. He completed writing it at the beginning of Jumada al-Thaniyah 900 AH in intervals spanning several hours across days whose total did not amount to a full day. He received the transmission of the base text through his primary teacher, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, from Ibn al-Mulaqqin. For the base text itself, al-Sakhawi relied upon a manuscript in the handwriting of Jamal al-Din Muhammad ibn Zahira, which had been read to Ibn al-Mulaqqin during Ramadan 777 AH at the Nasiriyyah Madrasah in Cairo.
After finishing his initial commentary, al-Sakhawi examined a short commentary on the same work written by Ibn al-Mulaqqin himself, entitled al-Tabsira. Al-Sakhawi noted that Ibn al-Mulaqqin had prolonged specific sections—such as weak hadith (al-da'if), citing material from Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi’s commentary on his own Alfiyyah, as well as entries on similar names (al-mu'talif), history, and well-known reports (al-mashhur)—which al-Sakhawi regarded as ill-suited to the conciseness of the original text. Al-Sakhawi also examined a versification of al-Tadhkirah consisting of under 120 lines written by Shihab al-Din Ibn al-Imad, which contained several additions, such as the conditions governing acceptable mursal reports; al-Sakhawi subsequently incorporated Ibn al-Imad’s additions into his own commentary so that the work could serve simultaneously as an explanation of both the prose primer and its versification.
Content and Method
The base text outlines three primary categories of hadith—authentic (sahih), fair (hasan), and weak (da'if)—and proceeds to list more than eighty individual branches of hadith terminology, which al-Sakhawi notes exceed one hundred. Al-Sakhawi systematically explains these technical designations, distinguishing terms based on whether they pertain to the chain of transmission (isnad), the text (matn), or both—such as contrasting the supported narration (al-musnad), the continuous chain (al-muttasil), and the attributed narration (al-marfu'), as well as demarcating interrupted chains (al-munqati') from narrations halted at a Successor (al-maqtu').
Al-Sakhawi's legal-hadith analyses in the book mirror the conclusions presented in his extensive commentary Fath al-Mughith, including his endorsement of al-Shafi'i’s definition of anomalous transmissions (al-shadhdh) and the distinction between mass-transmitted (mutawatir) and well-known (mashhur) reports. He also explicitly observes that the notion of tawatur standard in Islamic jurisprudence and legal theory (usul al-fiqh) is not among the core subjects investigated by hadith critics.
Manuscripts and Publication
Early manuscript copies of al-Tawdih al-Abhar include:
- A copy penned by the historian and traditionist Abd al-Aziz ibn Umar ibn Fahd al-Makki al-Hashimi at his home in Mecca on Sunday, 3 Jumada al-Akhirah 900 AH, shortly after the author finished composing it.
- A copy transcribed by Abd al-Mu'ti ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Sakhawi on Sunday, 5 Sha'ban 902 AH, completed nine days prior to the author’s death, preserved in the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyyah).
The text was edited by Abd Allah ibn Muhammad Abd al-Rahim al-Bukhari and published by Maktabat Adwa' al-Salaf in Riyadh in 1418 AH (1997 CE).
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