Hidayat al-Murtab wa Ghayat al-Huffaz wa al-Tullab fi Tabyin Mutashabih al-Kitab
- Author died
- 643 AH
- Editions
- دار الغوثاني للدراسات القرآنية
Hidayat al-Murtab wa Ghayat al-Huffaz wa al-Tullab fi Tabyin Mutashabih al-Kitab (Guidance for the Doubter and the Ultimate Aim of Memorizers and Students in Clarifying the Ambiguous Expressions of the Book) is a didactic poem on the verbal similarities and homonymous phrases (mutashabih al-lafzi) of the Quran by the Syrian scholar of Quranic recitation Alam al-Din al-Sakhawi (558–643 AH / 1163–1245 CE) .
Purpose and Scope
Composed in the rajaz meter (urjuzah), the work addresses words and verses across the Quran whose phrasing closely resembles other passages and may lead to hesitation or error during recitation . Al-Sakhawi formulated the poem to serve memorizers (huffaz) and advanced students of the Quran by distinguishing identical or nearly identical phrases throughout different surahs . In the concluding lines of the work, the author notes that while he does not claim to have exhausted every difficult phrasing, the poem serves as a reliable aid to the reciter .
Structure and Organization
The poem is arranged in alphabetical order according to the first letter of each problematic or ambiguous word or phrase (huruf al-mu'jam); a reader seeking clarification on a specific phrase consults the section corresponding to its initial letter .
The concluding lines of the text state that the poem comprises 431 verses :
وواحد بعد الثلاثين العدد ... مع أربع من المئين لم تزد
"And the count is one and thirty, alongside four hundred, without addition."
In other biographical descriptions, the total count is recorded as 425 verses .
Reception and Commentaries
The work became widely recognized in the field of Quranic sciences, frequently referred to simply as al-Sakhawiyyah . It was cited by Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi in al-Burhan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an and by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti in al-Itqan fi 'Ulum al-Qur'an as one of the primary poetic treatments of Quranic verbal similarities . Katip Celebi (Hajji Khalifa) also cataloged the text in Kashf al-Zunun .
The poem was commented upon in later scholarship, including an explanation titled Kashf al-Hijab 'an Hidayat al-Murtab by Muhammad Najib, known as al-Ala .
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