Sharh Tayyibat al-Nashr lil-Nuwayri
- Author died
- 857 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmīyah
Sharh Tayyibat al-Nashr (The Commentary on the Fragrance of the Dissemination) is a two-volume commentary on Quranic readings by the Egyptian Maliki scholar Muhibb al-Din al-Nuwayri (801–857 AH / 1399–1453 CE) . It serves as an elucidation of Ibn al-Jazari's (d. 833 AH / 1429 CE) didactic thousand-verse poem, Tayyibat al-Nashr fi al-Qira'at al-Ashr .
Background and Composition
The base text, Tayyibat al-Nashr, was composed in the rajaz meter in Sha'ban 799 AH in Bursa by Ibn al-Jazari as a versified summary of his comprehensive manual on the ten readings, al-Nashr fi al-Qira'at al-Ashr . Al-Nuwayri met Ibn al-Jazari in Mecca on Monday, 18 Rajab 828 AH while both were residing there . He recited a portion of the Quran directly to Ibn al-Jazari according to three of his works—al-Nashr, Taqrib al-Nashr, and Tayyibat al-Nashr—and received an authorization (ijaza) for the rest .
Following his stay in Mecca and a visit to Medina, al-Nuwayri traveled toward Hebron and Jerusalem . In the surrounding region, students and practitioners of recitation gathered around him and requested that he compose an explanation of Tayyibat al-Nashr, noting that the extreme brevity of the poem made it difficult to comprehend without guidance . Al-Nuwayri initially hesitated because no earlier scholar had composed a commentary on it to serve as a model, but he eventually agreed to their requests and authored the work .
Content and Method
The commentary covers the entire text of Tayyibat al-Nashr, explaining the ten canonical readings—comprising the seven traditional readings alongside the three additional readings of Abu Ja'far, Ya'qub, and Khalaf . Al-Nuwayri decodes the symbolic letters and code words used by Ibn al-Jazari, clarifies the underlying phonetic and grammatical principles, and details the transmission paths (turuq) and reading variations documented in the poem .
Reception and Manuscripts
Al-Nuwayri's commentary is considered one of the earliest and most prominent commentaries on Tayyibat al-Nashr, alongside the commentary written by Ibn al-Jazari's son, Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Jazari . Later scholars who engaged with Ibn al-Jazari's corpus and the verification of transmission paths frequently relied upon it .
The text survived in numerous manuscript copies across repositories such as the Azhar Library, the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya), and collections in Riyadh, Istanbul, Berlin, and Oxford . Among these is an early manuscript preserved at al-Azhar (MS 26610) transcribed in 834 AH during al-Nuwayri's lifetime . The book was published in two volumes in Beirut, edited by Magdy Muhammad Surur Sa'd Basloum, following an earlier edition issued under the supervision of the Islamic Research Academy at al-Azhar .
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