al-Wafi fi Sharh al-Shatibiya
- Author died
- 1403 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Sawadi li-l-Tawzi'
al-Wafi fi Sharh al-Shatibiya (The Complete Commentary on al-Shatibiya) is a contemporary commentary on al-Qasim ibn Firruh al-Shatibi’s (d. 590 AH) foundational didactic poem on the seven canonical Quranic readings (qira'at), Hirz al-Amani wa-Wajh al-Tahani, authored by the Egyptian Quranic scholar Abd al-Fattah al-Qadi (d. 1403 AH) .
Background and Purpose
Al-Qadi composed the work to provide a clear, systematic exposition of the Shatibiya specifically for students enrolled in the institutes of al-Azhar in Egypt and religious institutes across other Islamic countries where the poem is prescribed as part of the curriculum . The text aims to unpack the poem's dense phrasing, resolve its cryptic symbols (rumuz), define its terms, and clarify its grammatical and recitation rules .
Contents and Structure
The book begins with an introductory study before proceeding to a line-by-line commentary on the 1,173 verses of the Shatibiya .
Introductory Treatise
In the introduction, al-Qadi provides:
- A biography of Imam al-Shatibi, covering his origins in Jativa (Shatiba), his education in Valencia and Alexandria, and his teaching post at the Fadiliyya school in Cairo .
- A discussion of prophetic hadiths concerning the revelation of the Quran according to "seven modes" (sab'at ahruf), such as those narrated on the authority of Ibn Abbas, Ubayy ibn Ka'b, and Umar ibn al-Khattab .
- A survey of opinions regarding the nature of the ahruf, where the author endorses the position of Abu al-Fadl al-Razi that they refer to seven categories of variation: nouns (singular, dual, plural, masculine, feminine); verb forms (past, present, imperative); inflection (i'rab); addition and omission; word order; letter substitution; and dialectal pronunciation variations such as imala, idgham, tashil, and tafkhim .
- A clarification that the canonical readings of the seven (and ten) Imams represent a preserved subset of these seven ahruf compatible with the Uthmanic codices, rejecting the misconception that each of the seven canonical readers corresponds individually to one of the seven ahruf .
Commentary Method
In the body of the work, al-Qadi follows a consistent pedagogical structure for each verse:
- Linguistics (al-Lughah): Explaining vocabulary, lexical derivations, and syntactic subtleties of the verse .
- Meaning (al-Ma'na): Paraphrasing the verse's intended message and deciphering the letter-codes and word-codes (rumuz) used by al-Shatibi to designate specific readers and transmitters .
The commentary covers the general principles (usul)—including the rules of seeking refuge (isti'adha), the basmala, major assimilation (al-idgham al-kabir), hamzas, lengthening (madd), and imala—before systematically proceeding through the surah-by-surah variants (farsh al-huruf) from Surah al-Baqarah to the end of the Quran .
Publication
al-Wafi was published in a single volume by Maktabat al-Dar in Medina in a first edition dated 1404 AH (1983 CE) . It has seen multiple subsequent printings by various publishers, including Maktabat al-Sawadi (1412 AH and 1999 CE) and Dar al-Salam . It serves as one of the standard modern reference manuals for students studying the seven canonical readings .
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