Sharh Sunan Ibn Majah lil-Harari = Murshid Dhawi al-Hija wa al-Haja ila Sunan Ibn Majah
- Author died
- 1441 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Minhāj
Murshid Dhawi al-Hija wa al-Haja ila Sunan Ibn Majah (Arabic: مرشد ذوي الحجا والحاجة إلى سنن ابن ماجه) is an extensive twenty-six-volume commentary on the hadith collection Sunan Ibn Majah by the Ethiopian-born Meccan scholar Muhammad al-Amin al-Harari (d. 1441 AH / 2019 CE) .
Title and Composition
In his introduction, al-Harari gives the full title of the work as Murshid Dhawi al-Hija wa al-Haja ila Hal wa Fak Ma‘ani wa Mabani Sunan Ibn Majah (Guide for the Wise and Needy to Untangling the Meanings and Structures of Sunan Ibn Majah), with the subtitle Nihayat al-Qawl al-Muktafa fi Sharh Sunan al-Mustafa (The Ultimate Sufficient Word in Explaining the Sunan of the Chosen Prophet) . He also records it under the title al-Qawl al-Muktafa ‘ala Sunan al-Mustafa .
Al-Harari states that after emigrating from the Oromo lands in Ethiopia to Mecca in 1398 AH (1978 CE), where he taught at Dar al-Hadith al-Khayriyyah, peers and colleagues repeatedly urged him to compose a detailed commentary on Sunan Ibn Majah, noting that comparatively few comprehensive commentaries had been dedicated to it . He composed the commentary over several decades; colophons at the conclusion of various volumes record completion and resumption dates spanning from 1421 AH (2000 CE) through 1435 AH (2014 CE) .
Structure and Method
The commentary opens in the first volume with a substantial introduction divided into five distinct topics (anwa‘) :
- Biography and Name of Ibn Majah: An examination of Ibn Majah's identity, linguistic analysis of the vocalization and spelling of his name (Ibn Majah with an unpointed ha' versus Ibn Majah with a ta' marbutah), and its Persian or Arabic etymological origins and grammatical rules .
- Dates and Journeys: A record of Ibn Majah's birth in 209 AH, death in Ramadan 273 AH at the age of sixty-four, burial details, and his travels for hadith across Mecca, Basra, Kufa, Baghdad, Syria, Egypt, and Rayy .
- Teachers, Students, and Standing: A survey of twenty-four of Ibn Majah's primary teachers arranged by region (Damascus, Homs, Egypt, and Iraq), his transmitters, and evaluations of his reliability by scholars such as Abu Ya'la al-Khalili and al-Rafi'i .
- Characteristics and Statistics of the Sunan: A breakdown of the book's 36 topical books (kutub), 1,515 chapters (abwab), and 4,426 hadiths, including a statistical analysis of its 1,565 unique additions over the other canonical collections (differentiating sound, fair, weak, and fabricated reports) . This section also outlines the five methodological functions of hadith citation (inferential evidence, corroboration, supporting context, digression, and multiple transmission), criteria for evaluating chains of narration, three-narrator chains (thulathiyyat), and earlier commentaries on the Sunan (such as those by Mughaltay, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti, and al-Sindi) .
- Chains of Transmission: Al-Harari's own transmission paths to Ibn Majah, including an isnad received by general authorization (ijazah) through Muhammad Yasin al-Fadani, comprising eighteen intermediaries back to the author .
Throughout the text, al-Harari provides exhaustive coverage of each tradition, addressing grammatical syntax (i‘rab), linguistic definitions, biographies of narrators in the isnad, hadith grading, jurisprudence, and doctrinal commentary. At the end of each volume, he appends an exact tally of the chapters and hadiths expounded in that volume, classifying them according to whether they were cited for primary deduction (istidlal), corroboration (istishhad), supportive context (isti'nas), parallel tracking (mutaba‘ah), or digressive illustration (istitrad) .
Publication
The work was published in its first edition in 26 volumes in 1439 AH (2018 CE) as a joint publication by Dar Tuq al-Najat (Beirut) and Dar al-Minhaj (Jeddah) . The text was reviewed prior to publication by a scholarly committee chaired by Dr. Hashim Muhammad Ali Husayn Mahdi, a former consultant to the Muslim World League in Mecca .
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