Masail al-Qiraa fi al-Salah, wa al-Radd ala Ahad Shurrah al-Tirmidhi - ضمن "Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dār ‘Ālam al-Fawā’id lil-Nashr wal-Tawzī‘
Masail al-Qiraa fi al-Salah, wa al-Radd ala Ahad Shurrah al-Tirmidhi (Issues of Recitation in Prayer and a Refutation of a Commentator on al-Tirmidhi) is a legal and hadith treatise by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani (d. 1386 AH / 1966 CE) examining six core jurisprudential questions concerning Quranic recitation during ritual prayer .
Origin and Purpose
The treatise was drafted during al-Mu'allimi's residence in India . In the introduction, he states that he encountered an unpublished commentary on Jami al-Tirmidhi written by a contemporary Hanafi scholar . That commentator focused extensively on controversial juristic questions (al-masa'il al-khilafiyyah) and the critical examination of textual proofs according to transmission and rationale, without binding himself to earlier authorities in methods of interpretation, though adhering to the Hanafi school in legal rulings .
After reading the work from its beginning through the end of the Book of Prayer (Kitab al-Salah), al-Mu'allimi recorded critical observations on points open to debate, then separated and organized his discussions concerning recitation in prayer into an independent treatise .
Structure and Content
Al-Mu'allimi structured the treatise around six main legal and hadith issues, responding systematically to the Hanafi commentator :
- The obligation of reciting Surat al-Fatihah in prayer: Analysis of hadith reports concerning the duty of recitation, their derivation (takhrij), textual meaning, and legal deductions, with corrections of errors made by the commentator .
- The obligation of al-Fatihah in every unit of prayer: Evidence for the requirement of reciting Surat al-Fatihah in every rak'ah, treated concisely in about one page .
- The obligation of reciting additional verses beyond al-Fatihah: A detailed evaluation of the variant wording "and beyond" (fa-sa'idan) in the hadith on recitation, refuting the commentator's interpretation in light of Classical Arabic lexicography and parallel reports .
- Recitation of al-Fatihah by the follower (al-ma'mum): The ruling on whether a person praying behind an imam must recite Surat al-Fatihah .
- Additional recitation by the follower in silent prayers: Whether the follower should recite additional verses beyond al-Fatihah in the first two units of the Zuhr and Asr prayers .
- Followers who cannot hear the imam: Whether a follower who is deaf or positioned far from the imam should recite portions other than al-Fatihah while the imam recites aloud .
Manuscript and Publication
The unique holographic manuscript is preserved in the Library of the Holy Mosque in Mecca (Maktabat al-Haram al-Makki, no. 4695) in a 94-page notebook by the author's pagination . Eleven pages immediately following the introduction are missing from the notebook and were not traced in other drafts . The manuscript also contained several unnumbered draft pages, water stains, additions in the margins, and crossed-out lines; non-redundant draft materials were appended to the end of the text by its editors .
The work has been published as part of the collected works project Athar al-Mu'allimi (treatise 25, volume 18) .
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