Manar al-Huda fi Bayan al-Waqf wal-Ibtida by Abd al-Rahim al-Tarhuni
- Author died
- 1100 AH
- Editions
- ت عبد الرحيم الطرهوني
Manar al-Huda fi Bayan al-Waqf wal-Ibtida (The Beacon of Guidance in Explaining Pausing and Resuming) is a comprehensive treatise on Quranic pausing and resuming (waqf wal-ibtida') authored by the eleventh-century AH Egyptian Shafi'i jurist and reciter Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim al-Ashmuni (d. c. 1100 AH / 1688 CE) . This critical edition was edited by Abd al-Rahim al-Tarhuni, an instructor of recitation and tajwid at al-Azhar .
Subject and Content
The work addresses the rules and places of pausing (waqf) and beginning (ibtida') during Quranic recitation, aligning pause choices with grammar, morphology, syntax, rhetoric, and commentary (tafsir) to preserve correct linguistic structure and proper theological meaning .
Al-Ashmuni opens the book with introductory principles and notices (fawa'id wa-tanbihat) outlining the discipline’s foundations, quoting early authorities such as Abu Ja'far al-Nahhas, Ibn al-Anbari, and Makki ibn Abi Talib . He discusses topics such as stopping at the ends of verses (ru'us al-ay), the legal status of the canonical readings, the classification of non-canonical variants (shadhdh), and the necessity of separating distinct semantic contexts, such as verses describing paradise from those describing hellfire . Following the introduction, the book proceeds sequentially through the Quran, surah by surah (farsh al-suwar), analyzing individual verses to identify complete (tamm), sufficient (kafin), good (hasan), and improper (qabih) points of pause .
Editorial Method of Abd al-Rahim al-Tarhuni
Abd al-Rahim al-Tarhuni completed his editorial work in Sohag on 29 Safar 1423 AH (11 May 2002 CE), and the edition was published by Dar al-Hadith in Cairo . His editorial approach entailed:
- Modernizing orthography, applying standardized punctuation, and rectifying scribal omissions and linguistic slips within the manuscripts .
- Standardizing the vocalization and verse numbering of Quranic passages in accordance with the transmission of Hafs 'an Asim, except where the author specified an alternate reading .
- Verifying and referencing the documented variant readings (qira'at), Prophetic hadiths, and poetic citations against classical grammar, linguistics, and hadith collections .
- Collating biographical information for cited scholars against biographical dictionaries and adding explanatory notes for technical terms and uncommon vocabulary .
Reception and Other Editions
Manar al-Huda is regarded by Quranic scholars as one of the best and most comprehensive later works on waqf and ibtida', bringing together summaries and rulings from numerous earlier foundational treatises .
In addition to al-Tarhuni's edition, the text was previously printed by al-Babi al-Halabi in Cairo in 1973, where it was published alongside Zakariyya al-Ansari's al-Maqsad li-Talkhis al-Murshid . Another edition with annotations by Sharif Abu al-Ula al-Adawi was published by Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya in Beirut in 2002 .
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