Tafsir Gharib ma fi al-Sahihayn al-Bukhari wa Muslim
- Author died
- 488 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Sunnah
Tafsir Gharib ma fi al-Sahihayn al-Bukhari wa Muslim (Explanation of the Obscure Vocabulary in the Two Sahihs of al-Bukhari and Muslim) is a specialized hadith lexicon by the Andalusian scholar Abu Abd Allah al-Humaydi (d. 488 AH / 1095 CE), dedicated to clarifying rare and difficult vocabulary found in Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim .
Background and Purpose
Al-Humaydi composed this work as a direct companion to his major hadith compilation, al-Jam' bayn al-Sahihayn (The Combination of the Two Sahihs) . In the introduction, he explains that after completing al-Jam' bayn al-Sahihayn—where he had restricted himself strictly to the hadith texts to facilitate memorization and recall—he recognized the need to provide an exposition of the obscure vocabulary (gharib) occurring throughout those traditions . The objective was to ensure that students and scholars reading the texts would not be interrupted by linguistic ambiguities or forced to search through external lexicons .
Structure and Method
Unlike standard hadith lexicons that are arranged alphabetically or by root letters, al-Humaydi organized the work in accordance with the arrangement of his al-Jam' bayn al-Sahihayn, grouping the vocabulary under the individual musnad (narrative corpus) of each Companion . It opens with the musnad of Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, followed by the musnad of Umar ibn al-Khattab, and continues through the rest of the Companions . Under each Companion's section, he identifies unusual terms and idioms in the order of their appearance, defining their meanings, linguistic roots, and morphological variants based on his research across Arabic lexicographical sources .
Editions
The work has been edited by Zubaydah Muhammad Sa'id Abd al-Aziz and published by Maktabat al-Sunnah in Cairo .
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