Tanzih al-Sharia al-Marfu'a an al-Akhbar al-Shania al-Mawdu'a
- Author died
- 963 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah
Tanzih al-Sharia al-Marfu'a an al-Akhbar al-Shania al-Mawdu'a (Purifying the Exalted Sacred Law from Abominable Fabricated Reports) is a specialized biographical and critical reference work on fabricated hadiths (al-ahadith al-mawdu'a) composed by the Shafi'i scholar and hadith specialist Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Iraq al-Kinani (d. 963 AH / 1556 CE) .
Composition and Sources
Ibn Iraq completed the book in Cairo in 954 AH / 1547 CE and dedicated it to Sultan Suleyman (Suleiman the Magnificent) . The work was conceived as a systematic synthesis and abridgment of earlier literature on forged narrations, focusing primarily on:
- Kitab al-Mawdu'at by Ibn al-Jawzi .
- Al-La'ali al-Masnu'a fi al-Ahadith al-Mawdu'a, its supplement (Dhayl), and al-Nukat al-Badi'at by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti .
To cross-examine and supplement these core works, Ibn Iraq consulted several other critical sources, including Ibn al-Jawzi's al-Ilal al-Mutanahiya and al-Dhahabi's abridgments of it and of al-Jawzaqani's al-Abatil; al-Dhahabi's Mizan al-I'tidal; Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's Lisan al-Mizan, Takhrij Ahadith al-Rafi'i, Takhrij al-Kashshaf, Al-Matalib al-Aliya, Tasdid al-Qaws, and Zahr al-Firdaws; Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi's Takhrij al-Ihya and al-Amali; and Jalal al-Din Ibrahim ibn Uthman ibn Dirbas's Talkhis al-Mawdu'at .
Structure and Method
The work begins with introductory sections addressing the definition of fabrication, signs and indicators of forged reports (such as a narrator's confession, chronological impossibility, textual absurdity, or severe disproportion between small deeds and outsized rewards), and the prohibition of transmitting fabricated hadiths except to clarify their status . This is followed by a discussion on the mass-transmission of the warning against attributing lies to the Prophet Muhammad and an extensive alphabetical biographical dictionary listing 1,774 known liars and fabricators .
The main corpus is arranged thematically according to traditional chapters of Islamic scholarship—beginning with the foundations of religion (usul al-din) and proceeding through legal subjects (fiqh) and other disciplines—following the general structure of al-Suyuti's al-La'ali . Outside of the chapter on biographical virtues (Kitab al-Manaqib), Ibn Iraq divided every thematic section into three distinct parts (fusul):
- First part: Narrations ruled fabricated by Ibn al-Jawzi where his judgment was undisputed .
- Second part: Narrations ruled fabricated by Ibn al-Jawzi where later scholars critiqued or disputed his verdict .
- Third part: Additional fabricated narrations introduced by al-Suyuti that were omitted by Ibn al-Jawzi .
For chapters where a particular category contained no narrations, he explicitly noted that the section was blank .
To streamline the presentation, Ibn Iraq used standard abbreviations for frequent primary collectors cited in his sources, including (عد) for Ibn Adi, (حب) for Ibn Hibban, (عق) for al-Uqayli, (فت) for Abu al-Fath al-Azdi, (مر) for Ibn Mardawayh, (طب) for al-Tabarani, (قط) for al-Daraqutni, (خط) for al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, (شا) for Ibn Shahin, (نع) for Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani, (حا) for al-Hakim al-Naysaburi, (قا) for al-Jawzaqani, (كر) for Ibn Asakir, (نجا) for Ibn al-Najjar, (مي) for al-Daylami, and (يخ) for Abu al-Shaykh . He marked his personal additions and evaluations with "I said" (qultu) and concluded them with "and Allah knows best" (wa-Allahu a'lam) .
Reception and Editions
Later hadith scholars commended the book's tripartite organization for clarifying which narrations were universally deemed fabricated versus those subject to scholarly debate . The text was edited by Abd al-Wahhab Abd al-Latif in collaboration with Abdullah Muhammad al-Nuri and published in Cairo (1378 AH / 1958 CE) in two volumes, and has seen subsequent reprintings, including an edition published by Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya in Beirut .
Answer updated