Ibn al-Jawzi
Ilam al-Alam bad Rusukhihi bi-Nasikh al-Hadith wa Mansukhihi
- Author died
- 597 AH
- Editions
- Ibn Ḥazm
I'lam al-'Alam ba'd Rusukhihi bi-Nasikh al-Hadith wa Mansukhihi (Informing the Scholar after His Firm Grounding on the Abrogating and Abrogated Hadith) is a specialized treatise on the abrogating and abrogated hadiths (nasikh al-hadith wa-mansukhuh) by the Baghdadi scholar Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH / 1201 CE) .
Background and Purpose
Ibn al-Jawzi composed the work after observing confusion and errors among earlier authors who wrote on hadith abrogation, following a similar pattern to his assessment of earlier literature on Quranic abrogation . His objective was to provide a critical, refined examination of reports claimed to be abrogated, challenging unfounded claims and clarifying instances where abrogation was improperly asserted . Because he included an extensive cataloging and critique of earlier scholars' mistakes, the initial text became quite lengthy .
Sources, Method, and Structure
The hadith material in the book is heavily derived from the earlier work Nasikh al-Hadith wa-Mansukhuh by Ibn Shahin (d. 385 AH / 995 CE) . Ibn al-Jawzi adopted the majority of the legal issues and reports presented by Ibn Shahin, but he departed from him by organizing the material according to the traditional chapters of Islamic jurisprudence (abwab al-fiqh) . Throughout the book, Ibn al-Jawzi evaluates chains of transmission and rigorously refutes many of Ibn Shahin's assertions of abrogation, often dismissing the underlying reports as unestablished or non-abrogated .
Abridgment and Publication
Ibn al-Jawzi later prepared an abridgment of the work titled Ikhbar Ahl al-Rusukh fi al-Fiqh wa al-Tahdith bi-Miqdar al-Mansukh min al-Hadith (Informing the Firmly Grounded in Jurisprudence and Hadith Transmission of the Extent of Abrogated Hadiths) . In that summary, he stripped away the chains of transmission and the extensive refutations of earlier errors, confining the text strictly to twenty-one hadiths whose abrogation he considered either definitively sound or plausible .
In the modern period, I'lam al-'Alam has been published based on manuscript witnesses, including an edition edited by Ahmad ibn 'Abd Allah al-Zahrani, published by Dar Ibn Hazm in Beirut .
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