Masabih al-Jami
- Author died
- 827 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Nawādir
Masabih al-Jami (Lamps of the Comprehensive Collection) is a commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari by the Maliki grammarian and jurist Badr al-Din al-Damamini (763–827 AH / 1362–1424 CE), focusing primarily on grammatical parsing, rare vocabulary, chapter headings, and difficult expressions in the hadith text .
Composition and Context
According to Haji Khalifa, al-Damamini composed the work for Sultan Ahmad Shah of India . A colophon from an early manuscript records that the author completed the compilation in Zabid, Yemen, before noon on Tuesday, 10 Rabi' al-Awwal 828 AH .
During al-Damamini's second delegation to Sultan Ahmad Shah in the first ten days of Muharram 822 AH, an individual named Minhaj al-Tibyano raised fourteen objections against Masabih al-Jami . In response, al-Damamini wrote a dedicated treatise titled al-Fath al-Rabbani fi al-radd 'ala al-Tibyano (The Divine Opening in Refuting al-Tibyano) to address and refute each of those criticisms .
Content and Method
The book adopts a concise, marginal style (ta'liq) rather than exhaustive exposition, offering explanatory glosses on more than 3,000 hadiths in Sahih al-Bukhari . Al-Damamini leveraged his expertise in Arabic grammar and literature to analyze the text, giving special attention to:
- Clarifying unusual or obscure vocabulary (gharib) .
- Resolving complex grammatical parsing (i'rab) and syntactic ambiguities .
- Exact vocalization and orthography of narrator names liable to scribal corruption or mispronunciation .
- Uncovering unidentified figures (mubhamaat) in transmission chains .
- Interrogating the relationship between chapter headings (tarajim) and their contents, alongside select legal (fiqh) and theoretical (usul) deductions .
The commentary also incorporates critical remarks and rectifications (ta'aqqubat) on preceding scholars and commentators .
Reception and Transmission
The historian and hadith scholar Shams al-Din al-Sakhawi inspected the work in a single volume, noting in al-Daw' al-lami' that the bulk of it was devoted to grammatical analysis (i'rab) and related matters . The text is also cited in scholarly bibliographies under variant titles, such as Ta'liq al-masabih 'ala abwab al-Jami' al-Sahih and al-Masabih fi sharh al-Jami' al-Sahih .
The work was transmitted through scholarly chains of narration (asānīd), including a transmission line through Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, who narrated it from two of al-Damamini's students: Sharaf al-Din Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-'Uqayli and Muhyi al-Din 'Abd al-Qadir ibn Abi al-Qasim al-Ansari, the judge of Mecca . A critical edition of Masabih al-Jami was prepared by Nur al-Din Talib and published by the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs of Qatar in collaboration with Dar al-Nawadir in 2009 (1430 AH) .
Answer updated