Al-Muhalla
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Kitab al-Muhallā bi'l Athār, also known as Al-Muhalla ("The Sweetened" or "The Adorned Treatise,"
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Islamic law Sharia (; ar, شريعة, sharīʿa ) is a body of religious law that forms a part of the Islamic tradition. It is derived from the religious precepts of Islam and is based on the sacred scriptures of Islam, particularly the Quran and the ...
and
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by . It is considered one of the primary sources of the
Zahiri The Ẓāhirī ( ar, ظاهري, otherwise transliterated as ''Dhāhirī'') ''madhhab'' or al-Ẓāhirīyyah ( ar, الظاهرية) is a Sunnī school of Islamic jurisprudence founded by Dāwūd al-Ẓāhirī in the 9th century CE. It is chara ...
te (lit. apparent, manifest)
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within
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.


Description

Kitab al-Muhallā bi'l Athār is, according to Ibn Hazm himself, is a commentary of a more extensive work. This book, which is now lost, was called al-Mujallā. The book is noted for the author's view that a Muslim is not obliged to fulfill every promise; specifically, that a Muslim who promised to commit a criminal act ''shouldn't'' fulfill such a promise.


Reception

It is his commentary on his own al-Mujallā ("The Brilliant Treatise"), and it is considered a masterpiece of fiqh literature. A site describes it: :''This book is a wealth of scholarship, in which Ibn Hazm discusses each question separately. On each question, he cites the views of earlier scholars of high achievement, not restricting himself to the views of the four schools of Fiqh, but also citing the rulings of scholars like al-Hassan al-Basri (d. 110), al-Laith ibn Saad (d. 175), Ata' (d. 114), Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161), al-Awza'ie (d. 157), etc. He also quotes the evidence they cite in support of their views. He then discusses why he considers their views incorrect, and produces the evidence in support of his own view. This makes for a highly scholarly discussion. Many scholars describe Al-Muhalla as the encyclopaedia of Islamic Fiqh. Indeed, it has preserved many of the views of early scholars whose work was either not documented or lost. The only problem with Al-Muhalla is that Ibn Hazm is often scathing in his criticism of his opponents. Yet there is no doubt that he is an honest defender of what he considers to be the truth. Any scholar who wants to exercise
ijtihad ''Ijtihad'' ( ; ar, اجتهاد ', ; lit. physical or mental ''effort'') is an Islamic legal term referring to independent reasoning by an expert in Islamic law, or the thorough exertion of a jurist's mental faculty in finding a solution to a le ...
, in order to arrive at rulings for questions encountered in present day life cannot overlook Al-Muhalla. Muhalla has been a significant work for proponents of the Zahirite school of law. During the
Almohad Caliphate The Almohad Caliphate (; ar, خِلَافَةُ ٱلْمُوَحِّدِينَ or or from ar, ٱلْمُوَحِّدُونَ, translit=al-Muwaḥḥidūn, lit=those who profess the Tawhid, unity of God) was a North African Berbers, Berber M ...
in particular, learning it was standard for the training of the judiciary. During the
Mamluk Sultanate The Mamluk Sultanate ( ar, سلطنة المماليك, translit=Salṭanat al-Mamālīk), also known as Mamluk Egypt or the Mamluk Empire, was a state that ruled Egypt, the Levant and the Hejaz (western Arabia) from the mid-13th to early 16th ...
in Egypt and Syria, the
Zahiri Revolt The Zahiri Revolt was a conspiracy leading to a failed coup d'état against the government of the 14th-century Mamluk Sultanate, having been characterized as both a political struggle and a theological conflict. While the initial support for the ...
was inspired in part by active studying and teaching of the book, in addition to separate political grievances. In the modern era, this trend has continued with adherents of the school; Pakistani scholar Badi' ud-Din Shah al-Rashidi, for example, gave classes based on the book in
Masjid al-Haram , native_name_lang = ar , religious_affiliation = Islam , image = Al-Haram mosque - Flickr - Al Jazeera English.jpg , image_upright = 1.25 , caption = Aerial view of the Great Mosque of Mecca , map ...
, Islam's holiest site, in
Mecca Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the Holiest sites in Islam, holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red ...
. Similarly, Yemeni scholar
Muqbil bin Hadi al-Wadi'i Muqbil bin Hadi bin Muqbil bin Qa’idah al-Hamdani al-Wadi’i al-Khallali (1933 – 21 July 2001) ( ar, مقبل بن هادي الوادعي) was an Islamic scholar and a major proponent of Quietist Salafism in Yemen. He was the founder of a ...
taught the book in
Al-Masjid an-Nabawi Al-Masjid an-Nabawi (), known in English as the Prophet's Mosque, is a mosque built by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the city of Medina in the Al Madinah Province of Saudi Arabia. It was the second mosque built by Muhammad in Medina, after Qub ...
, Islam's second holiest site, while in
Medina Medina,, ', "the radiant city"; or , ', (), "the city" officially Al Madinah Al Munawwarah (, , Turkish: Medine-i Münevvere) and also commonly simplified as Madīnah or Madinah (, ), is the Holiest sites in Islam, second-holiest city in Islam, ...
. Abu Abd al-Rahman Ibn Aqil al-Zahiri, a biographer of Ibn Hazm, sought permission to teach the book in
Riyadh Riyadh (, ar, الرياض, 'ar-Riyāḍ, lit.: 'The Gardens' Najdi pronunciation: ), formerly known as Hajr al-Yamamah, is the capital and largest city of Saudi Arabia. It is also the capital of the Riyadh Province and the centre of the R ...
, though the predominantly
Hanbali The Hanbali school ( ar, ٱلْمَذْهَب ٱلْحَنۢبَلِي, al-maḏhab al-ḥanbalī) is one of the four major traditional Sunni schools (''madhahib'') of Islamic jurisprudence. It is named after the Arab scholar Ahmad ibn Hanbal ...
te religious establishment did't grant approval. The
Ahl al-Hadith Ahl al-Ḥadīth ( ar, أَهْل الحَدِيث, translation=The People of Hadith) was an Islamic school of Sunni Islam that emerged during the 2nd/3rd Islamic centuries of the Islamic era (late 8th and 9th century CE) as a movement of hadith ...
movement in
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and
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frequently use the book as a teaching tool as well. Ibn Abd al-Salam said: "I did not see, in all the books of knowledge in Islam, anything like Ibn Hazm's al-Muhalla nor like Shaykh Muwaffaq al-Din's
Ibn Qudama Ibn Qudāmah al-Maqdisī Muwaffaq al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Muḥammad ( ar, ابن قدامة المقدسي موفق الدين ابو محمد عبد الله بن احمد بن محمد ; 1147 - 7 July 1223), often re ...
al-Mughni."
Al-Dhahabi Shams ad-Dīn adh-Dhahabī (), also known as Shams ad-Dīn Abū ʿAbdillāh Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad ibn ʿUthmān ibn Qāymāẓ ibn ʿAbdillāh at-Turkumānī al-Fāriqī ad-Dimashqī (5 October 1274 – 3 February 1348) was an Islamic historia ...
comments: "Shaykh `Izz al-Din is right, and the third is Al-Bayhaqi's al-Sunan al-Kubra, and the fourth
Ibn 'Abd al-Barr Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, Abū ʿUmar al-Namarī al-Andalusī al-Qurṭubī al-Mālikī, commonly known as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr ( ar, ابن عبد البر)
's al-Tamhid. Whoever obtains these volumes, if he is one of the intelligent muftis and perseveres in reading them - he is truly a `alim.
Muhammad Abu Zahra Muhammad Abu Zahra (Arabic: محمد أبو زهرة), (1898–1974) was an Egyptian public intellectual and an influential Hanafi jurist. He occupied a number of positions; he was a lecturer of Islamic law at Al-Azhar University and a professor ...
, one of the leading scholars in the twentieth century, describes this book in these words: "It is truly and accurately the pillar of Islamic Fiqh, and it is a highly useful book. Had it not been for the usage of scathing remarks and some phrases that are evidently inappropriate and out of place, it would have been the best book ever on Sunni Fiqh.


Editions

*It is published in several editions, sometimes in 9 volumes and sometimes in 12 *Beirut: The Commercial Office of Printing and Publishing, no date.


See also

*
List of Sunni books This is a list of significant books in the doctrines of Sunni Islam. A classical example of an index of Islamic books can be found in Kitāb al-Fihrist of Ibn Al-Nadim. The Qur'an and its translations (in English) :# ''The Meaning of the Glorio ...


References

{{Reflist Works by ibn Hazm Sunni fiqh