Sharh al-Nawawi ala Muslim
- Author died
- 676 AH
- Editions
- Dar Ihya' al-Turath al-'Arabi
Sharh al-Nawawi ala Muslim (known formally as al-Minhāj fī Sharḥ Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim ibn al-Ḥajjāj) is a prominent commentary on the canonical hadith collection Sahih Muslim, authored by the Shafi'i jurist and hadith scholar Abu Zakariyya Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi (631–676 AH / 1233–1277 CE) .
Scope and Composition
Al-Nawawi designed the work to be of intermediate length, avoiding both excessive brevity that omits necessary explanations and tedious elongation . In his introduction, he noted that were it not for the waning resolve of students and the lack of readership for exhaustive multi-volume treatises, he could have expanded the commentary into more than one hundred volumes without redundancy or superfluous filler, owing to the immense depth of legal and textual benefits in Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj's collection .
Structure and Methodology
The work opens with an extensive theoretical preface containing sequential chapters on hadith methodology, the criteria and structure of Sahih Muslim, its standing relative to Sahih al-Bukhari, narrator criticism, and detailed defenses answering critiques leveled against specific narrations by earlier critics such as al-Daraqutni .
A central feature of the commentary is al-Nawawi's insertion of explicit chapter titles (tarājim al-abwāb) . Although Muslim had organized his collection thematically, he did not provide explicit chapter headings in the text in order to avoid increasing its physical volume . Observing that prior attempts by scribes and commentators to supply headings varied in quality, al-Nawawi composed precise chapter headings suited to the legal and thematic scope of each group of narrations .
Throughout the commentary, al-Nawawi focuses on:
- Establishing correct vocalizations and resolving obscure names, patronymics, and ambiguous identities (al-mubhamāt) in the transmission chains .
- Defining unusual lexical terms and explaining linguistic nuances .
- Reconciling apparent contradictions between different narrations .
- Deriving legal rulings (aḥkām al-uṣūl wa-l-furūʿ), juristic principles, and ethical and ascetic insights (al-ishārāt al-zuhdiyyah) .
In preparing the text, al-Nawawi drew extensively on earlier commentaries and treatises, most notably al-Muʿlim bi-Fawāʾid Muslim by al-Mazari (d. 536 AH), Ikmāl al-Muʿlim by Qadi Iyad (d. 544 AH), al-Taḥrīr by Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Isbahani, and writings by Ibn al-Salah (d. 643 AH) .
Reception and Legacy
The commentary achieved widespread circulation and became one of the standard references for Sahih Muslim . Ibn Khaldun described it as a comprehensive commentary (sharḥan wāfiyan), while al-Sakhawi characterized it as a work of immense blessing (kitāb ʿaẓīm al-barakah) .
The Hanafi scholar Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Qunawi (d. 788 AH) authored an abridgment of the commentary . Later scholars also compiled analytical marginalia and critical remarks on specific points in the text, such as the contemporary compilation al-Nukat ʿalā Sharḥ al-Nawawī ʿalā Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim . Historically circulating in manuscript form across two to three volumes, it saw early typographic printings in Delhi at the Ahmadi Press and the press of Shaykh Ahmad al-Tajir .
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