Fath al-Aziz bi Sharh al-Wajiz = al-Sharh al-Kabir lil-Rafi'i
- Author died
- 623 AH
- Editions
- Dar Al-Fikr
Fath al-Aziz bi-Sharh al-Wajiz (also known as al-Sharh al-Kabir and al-Aziz) is an extensive commentary on Abu Hamid al-Ghazali's Shafi'i legal compendium al-Wajiz, authored by Abu al-Qasim al-Rafi'i (d. 623 AH / 1226 CE).
Title and Composition
The author originally titled the work al-Aziz fi Sharh al-Wajiz (or simply al-Aziz). Later scholars, as noted by Taj al-Din al-Subki, expressed religious hesitation about using the divine attribute al-Aziz unrestrictedly for a book other than the Quran, referring to it instead as Fath al-Aziz bi-Sharh al-Wajiz or al-Fat-h al-Aziz. It became widely known among jurists as al-Sharh al-Kabir ("The Large Commentary") to distinguish it from al-Rafi'i's shorter commentary on the same base text, al-Sharh al-Saghir.
The underlying text, al-Wajiz, was an abridgment produced by al-Ghazali through a sequence stemming from al-Juwayni's Nihayat al-Matlab, condensed first into al-Basit, then al-Wasit, and finally al-Wajiz. Al-Rafi'i noted in his preface that contemporary students had become devoted to memorizing and studying al-Wajiz due to its concise style and rich content, but its dense phraseology necessitated an extensive commentary to unravel its complexities and clarify its rulings.
Scope and Method
The commentary covers the full range of Shafi'i substantive law (furu'), typically filling about ten volumes in manuscript form. In it, al-Rafi'i synthesizes and systematizes the divergent transmission paths (turuq) and opinions within the school, providing legal reasoning (ta'lil), scriptural proofs, and comparative assessments with the positions of other jurists, such as Abu Hanifa and Ahmad ibn Hanbal. Al-Rafi'i also refers within the work to his unfinished, larger multi-volume legal treatise, Kitab al-Mahmud, during his discussion in the chapter on menstruation.
Scholarly Reception
The work attained high standing in Shafi'i juristic literature and served as a standard reference for legal rulings and teaching. Ibn al-Salah declared that no commentary equal to it had been written on al-Wajiz. Ibn al-Mulaqqin affirmed that nothing like it had been composed in the school in terms of arrangement, editing, and comprehensive synthesis, noting that jurists across regions relied on it for fatwas, instruction, and authoring. In the introduction to Rawdat al-Talibin, Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi praised al-Rafi'i for gathering the dispersed positions of the school with clarity and precision, describing the work as unmatched among earlier and later legal writings in fulfilling these objectives. The jurist Abu Ishaq al-Fazari remarked that the true caliber of al-Rafi'i's work could only be appreciated if a competent jurist attempted to compose a commentary on al-Wajiz directly from the original source texts without consulting al-Rafi'i's commentary.
Abridgments and Commentaries
The commentary became the foundation for several major legal works and subsequent commentaries:
- Rawdat al-Talibin wa-Umdat al-Muftin, an abridgment by al-Nawawi (d. 676 AH; another report gives 677 AH), which condensed and refined al-Rafi'i's commentary into roughly four volumes and became a primary reference in its own right.
- Niqawat Fath al-Aziz, an abridgment begun during al-Rafi'i's lifetime and completed in Sha'ban 625 AH by Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Wahhab al-Zanjani (d. 655 AH), who aimed to condense its length while addressing its complex legal queries.
- An abridgment by Ibn Aqil (Abdullah ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Hashimi al-Uqayli, d. 769 AH).
- An abridgment by Abd al-Ghaffar al-Qazwini into al-Hawi al-Saghir.
- al-Durr al-Azim al-Munir fi Sharh Ishkal al-Kabir, a supercommentary on its difficult points by Muhammad ibn Ahmad, known as Ibn al-Rabwah.
- al-Zahir ala Fiqh al-Sharh al-Kabir, a four-volume supercommentary by Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Asadi al-Qudsi (d. 808 AH).
- al-Muhimmat fi Sharh al-Rawdah wa-l-Rafi'i, a critical commentary by Abd al-Rahim al-Isnawi examining both al-Sharh al-Kabir and al-Nawawi's al-Rawdah.
- al-Tawassut bayna al-Rawdah wa-l-Sharh (also titled al-Tawassut wa-l-Fath), an extensive work by Shihab al-Din al-Adhru'i (d. 783 AH).
- al-Misbah al-Munir, a dedicated legal-linguistic dictionary authored by Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Fayyumi (d. after 770 AH) to explain the rare vocabulary and terms occurring in al-Sharh al-Kabir.
Hadith Extractions
Because al-Rafi'i cited numerous prophetic traditions and narrations (athar) without exhaustive chains of transmission, many hadith scholars wrote dedicated works to document and evaluate its narrations (takhrij):
- Takhrij Ahadith al-Rafi'i by Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Aybak al-Dimyati (d. 749 AH).
- Kashif al-Ghummah an Shafi'iyyat al-Ummah (also titled Umniyyat al-Alma'i fi Ahadith al-Rafi'i) by Ibn al-Naqqash (Muhammad ibn Ali, d. 763 AH).
- A takhrij by Izz al-Din Abd al-Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Jama'ah (d. 767 AH).
- al-Dhahab al-Ibriz fi Takhrij Ahadith al-Rafi'i al-Musamma Fath al-Aziz by Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi (d. 794 AH).
- al-Badr al-Munir fi Takhrij al-Ahadith wa-l-Athar al-Waqi'ah fi al-Sharh al-Kabir, an encyclopedic multi-volume work by Siraj al-Din Ibn al-Mulaqqin (d. 804 AH), which he also abridged into Mukhtasar al-Badr al-Munir.
- Talkhis al-Habir (originally drafted under the title al-Tamyiz fi Talkhis Takhrij Ahadith Sharh al-Wajiz) by Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (d. 852 AH), which condensed Ibn al-Mulaqqin's work and integrated benefits from the earlier extractions.
- Nashr al-Abir fi Takhrij Ahadith al-Sharh al-Kabir by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 911 AH).
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