Sharh Adab al-Qadi lil-Khassaf lil-Sadr al-Shahid
- Author died
- 536 AH
- Editions
- tahqiq al-Afghani · t Sarhan
Sharh Adab al-Qadi lil-Khassaf (Commentary on al-Khassaf’s Conduct of the Judge) is a Hanafi legal treatise on judicial procedure and court ethics composed by the jurist al-Sadr al-Shahid 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz ibn 'Umar ibn Mazah (483–536 AH / 1090–1141 CE) . The work serves as an extensive commentary on Adab al-Qadi by Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn 'Amr al-Khassaf (d. 261 AH) .
Composition and Purpose
In his introduction, al-Sadr al-Shahid states that he composed the commentary in response to requests from several of his companions who asked him to provide concise explanatory notes (nuktah wajizah) on each legal issue in al-Khassaf's original manual, supplying precisely what a reader requires to understand the underlying rulings .
Structure and Content
Al-Sadr al-Shahid organized the commentary into 120 chapters (bab), noting that he arrived at this count because certain subtopics were subsumed into broader sections, and he enumerated the chapters at the beginning of the text to facilitate navigation for students and jurists .
Before proceeding to the base text's specific rulings, the author establishes foundational preliminary discussions concerning:
- The linguistic and legal definitions of judgeship (qada') .
- The qualifications of those eligible to serve as judges, including legal reasoning (ijtihad), mastery of the Quran and the Sunnah, and upright character ('adalah) .
- The validity of accepting judicial appointment from rulers, whether just or tyrannical, provided the judge is permitted to administer justice truthfully .
- The legal ruling on entering the judiciary, concluding that voluntarily assuming the office is a legal dispensation (rukhsah), while declining it out of caution represents the preferred resolve ('azimah) .
The commentary then opens its substantive sections with the chapter on entering judgeship (Bab al-Dukhul fi al-Qada'), warning of its severe accountability on the Day of Resurrection through prophetic traditions . The subsequent chapters address court administration, procedural conduct, taking oaths, hearing testimonies, property partitions, debtor imprisonment, spousal maintenance orders, and the execution of judgments .
Method and Legal Approach
Al-Sadr al-Shahid follows the layout of al-Khassaf's manual, quoting its propositions and elaborating their legal rationale and textual evidence. He compares Hanafi principles with those of other schools; for instance, he contrasts al-Khassaf’s view that uprightness ('adalah) is a condition of preference (awlawiyyah) for judicial appointments with al-Shafi'i's position that it is an absolute requirement (shart lazim) without which an appointment is invalid . He also records internal transmission disputes and reconciliations among early Hanafi authorities such as Abu Hanifah, Abu Yusuf, Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani, and earlier commentators like Abu Bakr al-Jassas .
Reception and Editions
The work became a standard authoritative reference on judicial procedure within the Transoxanian and broader Hanafi tradition, and it is widely cited across major compendia such as al-Bahr al-Ra'iq, al-Binayah, and al-Fatawa al-Hindiyyah .
The book has been published in multiple modern editions:
- An edition verified by Abu al-Wafa al-Afghani and Abu Bakr Muhammad al-Hashimi .
- A four-volume edition edited by Muhyi Hilal al-Sarhan, published by the Iraqi Ministry of Awqaf in Baghdad (1397 AH / 1977–1978 CE) .
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