Matn al-Rahbiyya = Bughyat al-Bahith an Jumal al-Mawarith
- Author died
- 577 AH
- Editions
- Dar al-Matbu'at al-Hadithah
Matn al-Rahbiyya (Arabic: متن الرحبية), formally titled Bughyat al-Bahith ‘an Jumal al-Mawarith (بغية الباحث عن جمل الموارث; The Seeker’s Desire for the Sum of Inheritances), is a classical didactic poem on Islamic inheritance law (‘ilm al-fara’id) composed by the Shafi'i jurist Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ali al-Rahbi, known as Ibn al-Mutqina (497–577 AH / 1103–1182 CE; also reported as d. 557 AH) .
Structure and Legal Scope
The work is an urjuza composed in the rajaz meter (mustaf‘ilun repeated six times) . The text consists of 175 or 176 verses in standard transmissions, while an alternative count records it as 144 verses . The poem is named after Rahbat Malik ibn Tawq, the author's place of origin .
The poem summarizes the rules of estate division according to the Shafi'i school, adhering particularly to the doctrine of the Companion Zayd ibn Thabit on inheritance, which the author highlights in his introduction following the prophetic statement describing Zayd as the most learned in inheritance shares . In accordance with classical Shafi'i legal doctrine, al-Rahbi omitted the chapters on the redistribution of surplus shares (al-radd) and the inheritance of non-standard maternal/uterine relatives (dhawu al-arham) .
Supplements and Abridgments
Because the original text excluded al-radd and the shares of dhawu al-arham, later scholars authored poetic appendices (ziyadat) to supplement it:
- Abd Allah ibn Salih al-Khulayfi (d. 1381 AH) composed an 11-verse addition covering both topics .
- Walid ibn Idris al-Manisi versified these subjects in 64 lines accompanied by an explanatory treatise .
The poem was also condensed and abridged by various authors:
- al-Tuhfa al-qudsiyya fi ikhtisar al-Rahbiyya by Ibn al-Ha'im (d. 815 AH) .
- Mukhtasar al-Rahbiyya by Ismail ibn Abi Bakr ibn al-Muqri (d. 837 AH) .
- al-Durra al-mudiyya fi 'ilm al-qawa'id al-faradiyya (119 verses) by Abd al-Rahman ibn Abd Allah al-Ba'li (d. 1192 AH), which removed repetitive phrasing and adapted the material into a concise summary .
Commentaries and Reception
The text is regarded as one of the most beneficial primers for beginners in the study of Islamic inheritance law . It became the subject of extensive commentaries (shuruh) and supercommentaries (hawashi), including:
- al-Fawa'id al-Shanshuriyya by Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Shanshuri (d. 999 AH), written at the request of his son Abd al-Wahhab . This commentary was subsequently glossed by Ibrahim al-Bajuri (d. 1276 or 1277 AH) in al-Tuhfa al-khayriyya, as well as by Muhammad al-Khudari (d. 1287 AH), Muhammad al-Idfawi (d. after 1018 AH) in al-Lu'lu'a al-saniyya, and Muhammad ibn Salim al-Hifni (d. 1181 AH) .
- Commentary by Sibt al-Maridini, on which marginal glosses were written by Muhammad ibn Umar al-Baqari (d. 1111 AH), Ismail al-Adawi (d. after 1188 AH), and Ali ibn Abd al-Barr al-Wana'i (d. 1211 AH) .
- al-Anwar al-bahiyya fi sharh al-Rahbiyya by Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Sallami (d. 879 AH) .
- al-Sabika al-dhahabiyya ‘ala al-manzuma al-Rahbiyya by Faysal ibn Abd al-Aziz Al Mubarak (d. 1376 AH) .
- Hashiyat al-Rahbiyya fi ‘ilm al-fara’id by Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Qasim (d. 1392 AH), which incorporated al-Khulayfi's supplementary lines on al-radd and dhawu al-arham .
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