Irab ma yushkil min Alfaz al-Hadith
- Author died
- 616 AH
- Editions
- Muʾassasat al-Mukhtār lil-Nashr wal-Tawzīʿ
I'rab ma yushkil min Alfaz al-Hadith (The Grammatical Analysis of Ambiguous Words in Hadith) is a specialized grammatical treatise composed by the Hanbali grammarian and jurist Abu al-Baqa al-Ukbari (d. 616 AH / 1219 CE), dedicated to parsing and elucidating linguistically difficult or ambiguous expressions found in the Prophetic traditions.
Background and Title
The treatise represents the earliest dedicated book composed on the grammatical analysis (i'rab) of hadith. Al-Ukbari stated in his preface that a group of hadith students requested him to dictate a concise handbook parsing difficult words in hadith narrations, particularly because some transmitters committed solecisms (lahn) in their transmission, whereas the Prophet ﷺ and his Companions were free from grammatical error.
Biographers and later scholars commonly referred to the work simply as I'rab al-hadith or I'rab ma yushkil min alfaz al-hadith al-nabawi. In some surviving manuscript copies, it bears the expanded rhyming title Ithaf al-hathith bi-i'rab ma yushkil min alfaz al-hadith.
Structure and Methodology
To select the traditions for analysis, al-Ukbari relied primarily on Jami' al-masanid by his teacher Ibn al-Jawzi (d. 597 AH), a comprehensive collection incorporating the bulk of Musnad Ahmad, Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, and Sunan al-Tirmidhi. Following the arrangement of Ibn al-Jawzi's source work, al-Ukbari organized the selected traditions alphabetically by the names of the narrating Companions (musanid al-sahabah).
The work treats approximately 430 hadiths. In analyzing problematic phrases, al-Ukbari's method includes:
- Providing multiple parsing possibilities for a single narration.
- Corroborating grammatical constructions with citations from the Quran and classical Arabic poetry.
- Discussing relevant differences among grammarians.
- Judging an anomalous phrasing to be a transmitter's error (lahn) if it deviated from established Arabic usage and could not be justified by the rules of Arabic grammar.
Reception and Influence
Al-Ukbari's treatise served as a key reference for subsequent grammarians and hadith commentators. Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti drew directly upon it when compiling his expanded work on hadith grammar, Uqud al-zabarjad 'ala Musnad al-Imam Ahmad, expressly incorporating all of al-Ukbari's commentary with attribution before supplying additions and citations from other sources. Al-Suyuti characterized al-Ukbari's composition as a graceful treatise (ta'lif latif), while noting its brevity relative to the vast corpus of hadith.
Later scholars also contrasted al-Ukbari's approach with that of Ibn Malik (d. 672 AH) in Shawahid al-tawdih wa-l-tashih li-mushkilat al-Jami' al-sahih; whereas Ibn Malik used hadith texts to establish grammatical rules and occasionally corrected the grammarians, al-Ukbari adhered strictly to standard grammatical norms, attributing non-conforming narrations to solecisms by hadith transmitters.
Printed Editions
The book has been published in several critical editions under varying titles:
- Edited by Abd al-Ilah Nabhan, published by the Arab Academy of Damascus (1397 AH / 1977 CE).
- Edited by Hasan Musa al-Sha'ir as part of the study al-Nuha wa-l-Hadith al-Nabawi in Jordan (1981 CE).
- Edited by Muhammad Ibrahim Salim under the title Ithaf al-hathith bi-i'rab ma yushkil min alfaz al-hadith, published by Maktabat Ibn Sina in Cairo (1410 AH).
- Edited by Wahid Abd al-Salam Bali and Muhammad Zaki Abd al-Dayim under the title Ithaf al-hathith, published by Dar Ibn Rajab (1418 AH / 1998 CE).
- Edited by Abd al-Hamid Hindawi under the title I'rab ma yushkil min alfaz al-hadith al-nabawi, published by Mu'assasat al-Mukhtar in Cairo (1420 AH / 1999 CE).
Answer updated