Athmar al-Hidayah

Al-Hidayah, written by Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani (d. 593 AH), is the book a Hanafi student reaches after al-Quduri, and the one they are still consulting decades later. It states the rulings; it does not always state where in the hadith literature they come from. Athmar al-Hidayah sets out to close that gap on every page.

The title page states the method in one line: in this commentary there are three hadiths for every single ruling. The introduction to the first volume sets out what that means in practice.

• Three hadiths are brought for each ruling, each with its full reference, and an effort is made to take them from the six canonical collections so that the evidence is strong.
• Where al-Marghinani himself cites a hadith, the commentary gives its complete takhrij: which book it is in, and whether it is a hadith of the Prophet, a saying of a Companion, or of a Successor. Sayings of the Prophet are marked hadith and the rest athar, so the two are never confused.
• Each ruling is generally explained four times over, in different ways, so that a student grasps both the ruling and its evidence.
• The position of Imam al-Shafi’i is quoted from his own Kitab al-Umm, with its evidence, rather than reported at second hand.
• Where a ruling turns on a principle of usul, the principle is named.
• Verbal disputes, objections and rejoinders are deliberately left out, so that a student’s mind is not troubled by them.
• The old weights and measures are given alongside modern ones, so the two can be compared.

Hadith references are given twice over — the chapter in full, then a page number in the Pakistani printings and a hadith number in the Beirut and Saudi ones — because a reference that only works against one edition is a reference a student cannot follow.

The fifteen volumes run across the four parts of al-Hidayah: volumes one to three cover the first part, four to seven the second, eight to eleven the third, and twelve to fifteen the fourth. The set was first published in December 2008 by Maktaba Thamir, Manchester.