Umdat al-Ahkam al-Kubra
- Author died
- 600 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Ma'arif lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzi'
Umdat al-Ahkam al-Kubra (Arabic: عمدة الأحكام الكبرى) is a legal hadith collection authored by the Hanbali traditionist Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi (d. 600 AH / 1203 CE), compiling hadiths related to Islamic legal rulings arranged according to the topics of jurisprudence .
Title and Composition
The book is cited in biographical and bibliographical literature under various titles, including Kitab al-Ahkam, al-Ahkam al-Kubra, al-Ahkam 'ala Abwab al-Fiqh, and Umdat al-Ahkam al-Kubra . The author noted in his introduction: "These are hadiths on rulings concerning the lawful and the unlawful" .
Scholars distinguish this larger work (al-Kubra) from the author's more concise and widely memorized collection al-Umdah al-Sughra (commonly known simply as Umdat al-Ahkam); when the name al-Umdah is used without qualification, it typically refers to the abridged version . While the smaller work was restricted almost exclusively to traditions agreed upon by al-Bukhari and Muslim comprising around 430 hadiths, Umdat al-Ahkam al-Kubra comprises 949 hadiths .
Structure and Scope
Ibn Rajab and Mujir al-Din al-Ulaymi described the work as consisting of six parts (ajza'), whereas Ibn Badran described it as spanning three volumes . Ibn Abd al-Hadi noted that the author transmitted the hadiths in al-Ahkam al-Kubra with their chains of narration (isnads) .
The author structured the discussions in the work into five distinct divisions:
- Brief identification of the narrators mentioned in the hadiths—a subject he also treated in a separate standalone work entitled al-Uddah.
- The hadith texts themselves.
- Clarification of ambiguous or unnamed figures (al-mubhamaat) appearing in the reports.
- Exact vocalization and textual precision of difficult words (dabt al-lafz).
- Indications of the legal rulings and inferences derived from the narrations .
Unlike al-Sughra, the scope of al-Kubra extends beyond the two Sahihs to incorporate additional narrations needed for legal rulings, including traditions evaluated as weak by hadith critics .
Transmission and Publication
The work was transmitted through scholarly chains of narration; the scholar al-Fulani recorded his transmission of al-Umdah al-Kubra back to Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi via al-Suyuti, Muhammad ibn Muqbil al-Halabi, Salah ibn Abi Umar, and Fakhr al-Din Ibn al-Bukhari .
The text was edited and studied by Samir ibn Amin al-Zuhayri and published by Maktabat al-Ma'arif in Riyadh (1430 AH / 2009 CE) . Its second edition incorporated collation against a manuscript preserved in the Köprülü Library in Turkey (MS 398 Hadith, 120 folios) .
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