Matali al-Anwar ala Sihah al-Athar
- Author died
- 569 AH
- Editions
- Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs - State of Qatar
Matali al-Anwar ala Sihah al-Athar (The Rising of Lights upon Authentic Traditions) is a dictionary of uncommon hadith vocabulary (gharib al-hadith) and transmitter names compiled by the Andalusian scholar Ibn Qurqul (505–569 AH / 1111–1174 CE) . The work explains obscure wording, clarifies ambiguous phrases, rectifies disputed names of narrators, and distinguishes difficult or unvocalized terms found across three core hadith compilations: the Muwatta Malik, Sahih al-Bukhari, and Sahih Muslim .
Composition and Relation to Mashariq al-Anwar
The work was composed along the pattern of al-Qadi Iyad's Mashariq al-Anwar ala Sihah al-Athar . According to al-Sakhawi, when al-Qadi Iyad died before making a clean fair copy of Mashariq al-Anwar, Ibn Qurqul—who was one of his students—borrowed the rough draft from Iyad's son and extracted what he could from it due to the difficulty of deciphering the manuscript . People later copied from Ibn Qurqul's draft under the title Matali al-Anwar .
While some later scholars commented on this circumstance, Abu Ja'far Ibn al-Zubayr al-Gharnati noted that no reliable report indicates that Ibn Qurqul ever claimed the book as solely his own, a defense supported by al-Sakhawi on account of Ibn Qurqul's known piety and scholarly reputation . Hajji Khalifa characterized Matali al-Anwar as an abridgment of Iyad's Mashariq that also made corrections, resolved oversights, and introduced additional material . In certain biographical works, such as Isma'il Pasha al-Baghdadi's Hadiyyat al-Arifin, the text was also recorded under the variant title Matali al-Asrar fi Sharh Mashariq al-Anwar .
Method and Contents
Ibn Qurqul structured the work alphabetically by letter, closely mirroring the arrangement of Mashariq al-Anwar while introducing some rearrangements and textual additions . Entries define lexical difficulties, provide the vocalization of ambiguous names and toponyms, and highlight differences across transmission chains and manuscripts, often following chapters with sections devoted to textual discrepancies and misreadings (fasl al-ikhtilaf wa-l-wahm) . When adding his own critical comments, corrections, or supplements, Ibn Qurqul explicitly introduced them with phrases such as "I said" (qultu) or "Ibn Qurqul said" (qala Ibn Qurqul) . In theological passages addressing divine attributes, the text follows the Ash'ari interpretations adopted by al-Qadi Iyad .
Among the authorities and lexical sources cited explicitly or implicitly in the work are Ibn Qutayba's Adab al-Katib, Ibn al-Sikkit's Islah al-Mantiq, Abu Sulayman al-Khattabi's A'lam al-Hadith, Ibn al-Qutiyya's al-Af'al, and Ibn Asakir's al-Ishraf ala Ma'rifat al-Atraf .
Versification and Editions
The Syrian scholar Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Mawsili (known as Ibn al-Mawsili, d. 774 AH / 1372 CE; reported also as d. 747 AH) combined and versified Mashariq al-Anwar and Matali al-Anwar in approximately 3,000 lines in the rajaz meter under the title Lawami al-Anwar nazm Matali al-Anwar .
Matali al-Anwar was published in six volumes by Dar al-Falah under the supervision of Khalid al-Ribat, printed through the Ministry of Awqaf and Islamic Affairs of Qatar in 1433 AH / 2012 CE . Earlier editions of the text were printed in Tunis and Cairo (1333 AH) and in Morocco (1402 AH) .
Answer updated