Fath al-Munim Sharh Sahih Muslim
- Author died
- 1430 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Shurūq
Fath al-Munim Sharh Sahih Muslim (Arabic: فتح المنعم شرح صحيح مسلم, lit. 'The Victory of the Bestower: Commentary on Sahih Muslim') is a contemporary multi-volume Arabic commentary on Sahih Muslim authored by the Egyptian scholar and Al-Azhar University professor Musa Shahin Lashin (d. 1430 AH / 2009 CE) .
Background and Composition
Lashin had previously authored a simplified hadith work, al-Manhal al-Hadith, covering approximately four hundred selected hadiths from Sahih al-Bukhari for secondary students in the Azharite institutes . Although requested by students and hadith practitioners to complete an entire commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari using the same method, Lashin shifted focus upon his appointment as a lecturer in Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) and hadith at the Faculty of Usul al-Din at Al-Azhar University . Finding that the university's curriculum prescribed Sahih Muslim, which he felt had not received as accessible a scholarly service as Sahih al-Bukhari to satisfy academic students, he prioritized writing a dedicated commentary for it . The composition of the comprehensive work occupied him for twenty-three years .
Structure and Method
The commentary organizes the examination of each hadith entry into three distinct analytical sections :
- General Meaning (al-Maʿnā al-ʿĀmm): Explaining the overall theme and intent of the text in straightforward prose accessible to both general readers and specialists .
- Arabic Inquiries (al-Mabāḥith al-ʿArabiyyah): Analyzing linguistic vocabulary, grammatical syntax (naḥw), and rhetorical features (balāghah) for advanced students .
- Jurisprudence of the Hadith (Fiqh al-Ḥadīth): Delineating legal rulings, reconciling divergent narrations, surveying the legal reasoning (istidlāl) of classical jurists, and outlining broader religious benefits and derivations .
Lashin commenced his commentary directly with the "Book of Faith" (Kitāb al-Īmān), deliberately postponing the commentary on Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj's introductory treatise (al-Muqaddimah) to be placed in a separate volume at the completion of the project, mirroring Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's approach in Fath al-Bari .
Revisions and Editions
In the initial edition, Lashin grouped multiple variant narrations of the same hadith together under a unified explanation to avoid repetition and cross-referencing . However, he overhauled this structure in the second, expanded edition (published in 1423 AH / 2002 CE by Dar al-Shorouk in Cairo) to incorporate several methodological refinements :
- Placement of Chains of Transmission: The full isnād chains of Imam Muslim were moved to the footnotes with exact phrasing preserved for hadith specialists, while the main text retained only the primary text (matn) and uppermost transmitter introduced by "‘An" .
- Restoration of Original Sequence: The hadiths were restored to Imam Muslim’s exact original order rather than merged across separated placements .
- Systematic Numbering: Chapters were numbered (without strictly binding the headings to the chapter titles set by al-Nawawi), and Muslim's hadiths were numbered sequentially throughout the entire work, assigning distinct numbers to any narration exhibiting additions, omissions, or lexical variations .
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