Sharh al-Arbaeen al-Nawawiya lil-Manawi h 29 - 35
- Author died
- 1031 AH
- Editions
- Sharh al-Arbaeen al-Nawawiya lil-Manawi h 29 - 35
Sharh al-Arbaeen al-Nawawiya lil-Manawi h 29 – 35 is an academic edition of a section of the commentary on al-Nawawi’s (d. 676 AH / 1277 CE) renowned collection of forty hadiths, authored by the Shafi'i scholar Abd al-Rauf al-Munawi (952–1031 AH / 1545–1622 CE) .
Title and Composition
The commentary is widely known among biographical sources as Sharh al-Arba‘in al-Nawawiyya . It was cited under this title by the author's son, Taj al-Din Muhammad, in I‘lam al-Hadir wa-al-Badi, as well as by al-Muhibbi in Khulasat al-Athar and Abd al-Hayy al-Kattani in Fihris al-Faharis . In the opening lines of the book, al-Munawi refers to the work as a brief gloss on the forty hadiths compiled by al-Nawawi, noting that he composed it in response to a request from some colleagues .
Scope and Method
This specific segment covers the commentary from the beginning of Hadith 29—the narration of Mu‘adh ibn Jabal beginning with his inquiry about actions leading to Paradise—through to the conclusion of Hadith 35 .
In his approach, al-Munawi employs an interwoven commentary style (sharh mazji), integrating the text of the hadith directly into his explanation, in contrast to the verbatim quote-by-quote (qawli) method used in commentaries such as those by al-Fakihani and Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali . His analysis encompasses:
- Hadith criticism and chain evaluation, documenting textual variants and cross-referencing narrations found across the canonical collections (al-Sihah), Sunan, Masanid, and Mustakhrajat .
- Legal deductions (fiqh), lexical definitions, and grammatical clarifications .
- Ethical and behavioral reflections (suluk) drawn from prophetic teachings .
The commentary was praised by Abd al-Hayy al-Kattani, who characterized it as the finest of the commentaries written on al-Nawawi's Forty Hadiths .
Academic Edition
This portion was critically edited and studied by Muhammad Abd al-Karim Hasan al-Ishaqi as a master's thesis submitted to the Department of Fiqh al-Sunnah and Its Sources at the College of Hadith and Islamic Studies, the Islamic University of Madinah . The critical edition relies primarily on two manuscript witnesses: a copy preserved at al-Azhar and another from the Berlin State Library .
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