Shifa al-Alil fi Ikhtisar Ibtal al-Tahlil
- Author died
- 778 AH
- Editions
- Dār ʿAṭāʾāt al-ʿIlm
Shifa al-Alil fi Ikhtisar Ibtal al-Tahlil (Healing the Ailing in Abridging the Invalidation of Legalizer Marriage) is a Hanbali jurisprudence treatise by Badr al-Din al-Baali (d. 778 AH / 1376–1377 CE), abridging Ibn Taymiyyah's work Bayan al-Dalil ala Butlan al-Tahlil on the invalidity of sham marriages contracted to circumvent divorce laws .
Background and Composition
The original text by Ibn Taymiyyah (variously titled Bayan al-Dalil ala Butlan al-Tahlil, Iqamat al-Dalil ala Ibtal al-Tahlil, or Ibtal al-Tahlil) was dedicated to refuting legal stratagems in marriage contracts and invalidating nikah al-tahlil . Al-Baali produced summaries of four major works by Ibn Taymiyyah: al-Fatawa al-Misriyyah, al-Sarim al-Maslul, Iqtida al-Sirat al-Mustaqim (abridged as al-Manhaj al-Qawim), and Ibtal al-Tahlil .
Al-Baali completed the autograph manuscript of his abridgment on 29 Safar 755 AH . In his opening note on the manuscript, he recorded his authorship, stating that he abridged the work from Iqamat al-Dalil ala Ibtal al-Tahlil .
Subject and Content
The treatise focuses on the prohibition and legal invalidity of nikah al-tahlil—a marriage arranged with the intent of divorcing the woman so that she may become legally remarriageable to a prior husband who had divorced her three times .
Al-Baali condenses Ibn Taymiyyah's arguments concerning the invalidation of legal stratagems (hiyal), which seek to evade divine obligations or legitimize prohibited acts by manipulating outer contractual forms contrary to their intended legal purposes . The work establishes the nullity of such stratagems through textual proofs from the Quran, the Sunnah, and the consensus of the early generations (salaf), while also addressing legal maxims such as blocking the means (sadd al-dhara'i) and the underlying objectives of Islamic law (maqasid al-shari'ah) .
Manuscripts and Publication
The work is preserved in several manuscripts, including:
- An autograph manuscript by al-Baali preserved within a composite codex (majmu') containing his abridgments of Ibn Taymiyyah's treatises (folios 143a–176a), completed in Safar 755 AH .
- A manuscript held at the Berlin State Library (Ms. 4665, comprising 23 folios), transcribed in 1100 AH .
The book was edited by Ali ibn Muhammad al-Omran under the supervision of Bakr Abu Zayd and published in a single volume by Dar Ata'at al-Ilm and Dar Ibn Hazm (as well as Alam al-Fawa'id) as part of the scholarly series dedicated to the works of Ibn Taymiyyah .
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