al-Tawdih li Sharh al-Jami al-Sahih
- Author died
- 804 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Nawādir
al-Tawdih li Sharh al-Jami al-Sahih (Clarification for the Commentary on the Comprehensive Authentic Collection) is an encyclopedic commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari composed by the Shafi'i hadith scholar and jurist Ibn al-Mulaqqin (723–804 AH / 1323–1401 CE) .
Title and Transmission
The author explicitly designated the work as al-Tawdih li Sharh al-Jami al-Sahih in his introduction and cross-referenced it across his other writings . In biographical and bibliographical entries, Hajji Khalifa and Ismail Pasha recorded it under the title Shawahid al-tawdih, though this reflects a confusion with a grammatical treatise by Ibn Malik . The text was copied and transmitted by his student Sibt Ibn al-Ajami, who recorded on his manuscript that he copied the first half of the commentary and read it directly with Ibn al-Mulaqqin in Cairo .
Scope and Objectives
In his introductory discourse, Ibn al-Mulaqqin structured the core aims of his commentary around ten main divisions (aqsam):
- Investigating the subtleties and technical intricacies of the chains of transmission (isnad) .
- Establishing the precise vocalization of obscure transmitter names and difficult vocabulary in the hadith texts (matn) .
- Identifying the explicit names of individuals mentioned only by patronymics (kunya) or parental relationships .
- Distinguishing homonymous and heteronymous transmitter names (al-mu'talif wa-l-mukhtalif) .
- Providing biographical outlines for the Companions, Followers, and subsequent generations, including lineages, birth and death dates, while briefly defending criticized narrators among the Successors .
- Clarifying technical hadith categories present in the book—such as mursal, munqati', maqtu', mu'dal, gharib, mutawatir, ahad, mudraj, and mu'allal narrations—and addressing objections raised against specific reports .
- Unpacking obscure legal rulings, jurisprudence (fiqh), hermeneutical derivations (istinbat), and the theological and legal significance of al-Bukhari's chapter headings (tarajim al-abwab) .
- Providing connected source chains for suspended (mu'allaqat), hurried (mursal), and severed reports .
- Clarifying unnamed individuals (mubhamaat) and geographical localities mentioned throughout the texts .
He prefaced the commentary with an extended treatise addressing the authority of the prophetic Sunnah, principles of legal interpretation (such as general versus specific, absolute versus restricted, and abrogating versus abrogated texts), and the transmission history and classification of hadith .
Method and Sources
Ibn al-Mulaqqin followed the transmission of Sahih al-Bukhari that he heard from his two teachers, Zayn al-Din Abu Bakr ibn Qasim al-Kinani and Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Abi Talib al-Hajjar, through a chain going back to al-Yunini, al-Husayn ibn Abi Bakr al-Zubaydi, Abu al-Waqt al-Sijzi, Abd al-Rahman al-Dawudi, Abu Muhammad al-Sarakhsi al-Hamawi, al-Firabri, and al-Bukhari . Throughout the commentary, he documented textual variants across the various recensions and manuscripts of the Sahih .
The commentary functions as an extensive repository of earlier scholarship, preserving extensive quotations from earlier commentaries and sourcebooks whose original manuscripts were later lost or remain largely fragmentary, including the commentaries on Sahih al-Bukhari by Mughaltay, Ibn al-Tin, Ibn Battal, al-Muhallab ibn Abi Sufra, and Qutb al-Din al-Halabi .
Reception and Critique
The work became a foundational source for later commentators on Sahih al-Bukhari. His student Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani cited it extensively in Fath al-bari—frequently introducing Ibn al-Mulaqqin's remarks as "our shaykh said"—as did Badr al-Din al-Ayni in Umdat al-qari .
Scholars also noted certain shortcomings in the compilation. Ibn Hajar critiqued the commentary as being rich in its opening half but weaker in its second half, remarking that Ibn al-Mulaqqin had gathered the first part from multiple commentaries while relying in the latter half predominantly on the works of Ibn Battal and Ibn al-Tin, alongside occasional oversights in attribution and transmission references .
Publication
al-Tawdih li Sharh al-Jami al-Sahih was published in 36 volumes (including comprehensive analytical indexes) by the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs of Qatar, edited by Dar al-Falah under the supervision of Khalid al-Ribat and Jumu'ah Fathi .
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