Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani
Tahqiq al-Kalam fi al-Masail al-Thalath - dimn Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dar Alam al-Fawa'id lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzi'
Tahqiq al-Kalam fi al-Masail al-Thalath (Investigation of the Discourse on the Three Issues) is a theological and legal treatise by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani (d. 1386 AH / 1966 CE), examining independent legal reasoning, religious innovation, and aspects of Islamic creed .
Background and Composition
Al-Muallimi composed the work in 1344 AH (1925/1926 CE) while residing in Indonesia, at the age of thirty-two . The treatise was occasioned by an inquiry concerning a concise booklet titled al-Masail al-Thalath (The Three Issues) by the Sudanese scholar Ahmad al-Surkiti (d. 1363 AH; another report gives 1364 AH), which had been written amid escalating disputes between al-Surkiti and certain Alawi notables in Indonesia over creedal questions, Prophetic tradition, innovation, and legal imitation .
The questioner asked al-Muallimi for his general assessment of the treatise, his view of its author, and a detailed discussion of its three subjects . Al-Muallimi answered the first two points and initially demurred from the third, but upon the questioner's persistence, he undertook a comprehensive response while traveling and away from his personal library .
Title and Structure
The author left no explicit title on the surviving manuscript sheets or in his other papers . The modern editors assigned the title Tahqiq al-Kalam fi al-Masail al-Thalath to reflect both the subject of al-Surkiti's original treatise and al-Muallimi's critical analytical method .
The work is organized around three primary subjects :
- Independent reasoning and imitation (al-Ijtihad wa-al-Taqlid): treating the principles of following evidence versus adhering strictly to school traditions .
- Prophetic tradition and religious innovation (al-Sunnah wa-al-Bidah): containing sections addressing the construction of structures over graves, taking graves as places of worship or building mosques over them, grave visitation, seeking blessing (al-tabarruk), and intercession through intermediaries (al-tawassul) .
- Invoking the absent and the deceased (al-Nida li-l-ghaibin wa-al-mawta): structured into three stations (maqamat) that examine knowledge of the unseen (al-ittila ala al-ghayb), the claim of cosmic agency among certain human beings (tasarruf bad bani Adam fi al-kawn), and calling upon and supplicating them (al-nida wa-al-talab) .
Manuscript and Publication
The manuscript papers of the work had remained scattered across several miscellaneous codices and were unrecorded by previous researchers of al-Muallimi's legacy . It was gathered, identified, and edited by Ali ibn Muhammad al-Umran and Muhammad Uzayr Shams, and reviewed by Abd al-Rahman ibn Salih al-Sudays and Sulayman ibn Abd Allah al-Umayr . It was published as Volume 4 of Athar Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya al-Muallimi al-Yamani, spanning 581 pages .
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