Dhukhr al-Mutaahhilin wa al-Nisa li al-Imam al-Birkawi
- Author died
- 981 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Fikr
Dhukhr al-Mutaahhilin wa al-Nisa li al-Imam al-Birkawi (full title: Dhukhr al-Mutaahhilin wa-l-Nisa fi Tarif al-Athar wa-l-Dima, "The Provision of the Married and Women in Defining Purities and Bloods") is a concise legal treatise on the jurisprudence of women's menstrual and ritual bleeding according to the Hanafi school, authored by the Ottoman scholar Muhammad ibn Pir Ali al-Birkawi (929–981 AH / 1522–1573 CE) .
Purpose and Scope
Al-Birkawi composed the treatise to clarify the complex and often neglected rulings governing menstruation (hayd), post-natal bleeding (nifas), and irregular bleeding (istihadah), along with valid and defective periods of ritual purity (tuhr) . In his introduction, he noted that acquiring this knowledge is an obligation upon women, their husbands, and their guardians, yet in his era it had become largely forgotten, with students relying on standard legal primers that lacked detailed coverage of blood rulings . Al-Birkawi compiled the scattered rulings of the topic across earlier legal works over a significant portion of his life, confining the text to the strongest, most authentic, and preferred positions for legal verdicts (fatwa) in the school .
Structure and Contents
The work opens with a brief preface (tamhid) and an introduction (muqaddimah) divided into two parts, followed by six main chapters and concluding appendices :
- Introduction (al-Muqaddimah):
- First section: Definitions of terminology used in the treatise, including menstruation, post-natal bleeding, irregular bleeding, sound blood, absolute purity, sound purity, defective purity, complete and deficient purities, the habitual woman (al-mutadah), the beginner (al-mubtadaah), and the confused woman (al-mudillah) .
- Second section: Universal legal principles and general maxims governing bloods, purities, and habits .
- Chapter One: The onset and conclusion of the three types of blood, as well as rulings on the sanitary pad (al-kursuf) .
- Chapter Two: The beginner and the woman with an established habit, accompanied by practical case examples for post-natal bleeding and menstruation .
- Chapter Three: The cessation of bleeding (al-inqita) .
- Chapter Four: Continuous bleeding (al-istimrar), including a notice on the seven forms of defective bleeding classified as istihadah .
- Chapter Five: The confused woman who has forgotten her regular habit (al-mudillah) .
- Chapter Six: The legal rulings resulting from these bloods, followed by appendices on major ritual impurity (janabah), minor ritual impurity (hadath), and the legal excuses of the chronically impaired person (al-madhur) .
Reception and Commentaries
The treatise became one of the most celebrated and authoritative references on menstruation and purification in late Hanafi jurisprudence . Several scholars authored commentaries on it, including:
- Manhal al-Waridin min Bihar al-Fayd ala Dhukhr al-Mutaahhilin fi Masail al-Hayd by Ibn Abidin (1198–1252 AH), which became the most renowned commentary on the text .
- Dhakha'ir al-Akhirah Sharh Dhukhr al-Mutaahhilin by Ishaq ibn Hasan al-Zanjani al-Tuqadi (d. 1100 AH) .
- Zad al-Mutazawwijin Sharh Dhukhr al-Mutaahhilin by Abd al-Qadir ibn Yusuf ibn Sinan, known as Naqibzadah (d. 1107 AH) .
In modern print, the text was edited alongside Ibn Abidin's commentary and a pedagogical resolution of its case examples titled Irshad al-Mukallafin ila Daqa'iq Dhukhr al-Mutaahhilin by Hedaya Hartford and Ashraf Muneeb, reviewed by Abd al-Rahman Arjan al-Baynasawi, and published by Dar al-Fikr in Damascus in 1426 AH / 2005 CE .
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