al-Wajiz fi al-Fiqh ala Madhhab al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal
- Author died
- 732 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Rushd Nāshirūn
al-Wajiz fi al-Fiqh ala Madhhab al-Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (The Concise Manual of Jurisprudence According to the School of Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal) is a legal compendium written by the Iraqi Hanbali jurist Siraj al-Din Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Yusuf al-Dujayli (664–732 AH / 1266–1331 CE) . Within Hanbali legal terminology, an unqualified reference to al-Wajiz designates this work .
Composition and Methodology
Al-Dujayli composed the book as a concise legal manual (matn) confined to single preferred rulings (qawlan wahidan) derived from explicit reports transmitted from Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal . To facilitate memorization, the text was intentionally stripped of evidential proofs (adilla), legal rationales (ta'lilat), and internal juristic disputes (khilaf) .
The author repeatedly presented the draft to his teacher, the chief scholar and mufti of Iraq Abu Bakr Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Zurayrani (d. 729 AH), who edited the text and directly dictated additional explicitly reported rulings from Ahmad ibn Hanbal into it, authorizing fatwas based on its judgments .
Reception and Standing
The work was received among Hanbali scholars as an important reference text . Al-Zurayrani endorsed it on the manuscript, describing it as a concise work that gathers extensive issues and abundant benefits rarely matched in similar manuals . Later, Ibn Badran mistakenly attributed a work titled al-Wajiz directly to al-Zurayrani in his al-Madkhal, a confusion that Bakr Abu Zayd noted likely arose from reading al-Zurayrani's recorded praise of al-Dujayli's compendium .
In the introduction to al-Insaf, Ala al-Din al-Mardawi included al-Wajiz among the commended manuals, noting its foundation on preferred transmitted reports and its refinement by al-Zurayrani . However, al-Mardawi observed that the book contains numerous issues that deviate from the official position of the Hanbali school, where al-Dujayli followed his personal legal choices or adopted the non-standard positions found in al-Muharrar and al-Ri'aya; al-Mardawi subsequently cited and corrected these variant positions throughout al-Insaf .
Commentaries, Glosses, and Versification
Multiple Hanbali jurists wrote commentaries, glosses, and poetic adaptations of al-Wajiz:
- Commentaries (shuruh): A partial commentary was written by Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi . Muhammad ibn Abd al-Qadir al-Ja'fari al-Nabulusi (known as al-Jannah, d. 797 AH) commenced a commentary . Izz al-Din Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Nabulusi al-Maqdisi (d. 855 AH) authored an extensive commentary in five volumes . Ali ibn Baha' al-Zurayrani (d. 890 AH) wrote a commentary . Ala' al-Din Ali ibn Muhammad al-Hiti al-Baghdadi (d. 900 AH) wrote Fath al-Malik al-Aziz bi-Sharh al-Wajiz in five volumes, though another report states he completed only a portion . Ahmad ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Ali al-Futuhi (known as Ibn al-Najjar, d. 949 AH) began an incomplete commentary . Hasan ibn Abd al-Nasir al-Maqdisi commented on a section extending from the Book of Oaths (Kitab al-Ayman) to the end of the text, forming the seventh part . Badr al-Din Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Mawsili similarly commented on the portion from the Book of Oaths to the end . The commentary written by Hasan ibn Ali ibn Nasir ibn Fityan al-Dimashqi was destroyed by fire during civil strife in Damascus .
- Glosses (hawashi): Abd al-Rahman ibn Sulayman ibn Abi al-Karam (known as Abu Sha'ar, d. 844 AH) wrote marginalia focusing on the issues in al-Wajiz that differed from the relied-upon madhhab position . Al-Muhibb Ahmad ibn Nasr Allah al-Tustari (d. 844 AH) authored a gloss that served as one of al-Mardawi's sources in al-Insaf . Izz al-Din Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Nasr Allah al-Makhzumi (d. 876 AH) composed a gloss titled Tanqih al-Wajiz .
- Versification (nazm): Abu al-Fath Jalal al-Din Nasr Allah ibn Ahmad al-Tustari (d. 812 AH) turned the work into a didactic poem titled Manzumat al-Wajiz, also called al-Kabir fi al-Tafaqquh, comprising 6,000 verses, or reportedly 7,000 .
Manuscripts and Publication
Manuscript copies of al-Wajiz are preserved at the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus (MS sm 180, 55 folios) and the Ragıp Paşa Library in Istanbul (MS 1458, 55 folios), transcribed in 868 AH by the scribe Ahmad ibn Mas'ud al-Nabulusi . The text was edited from the Ragıp Paşa manuscript and published in Riyadh by Maktabat al-Rushd in 1425 AH / 2004 CE, prepared by the Center for Scientific Research and Islamic Heritage Revival at Maktabat Imam al-Da'wa al-Ilmiyya .
Answer updated