Analyzing the Scholarly Personality of a Commentator: Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr and His Commentaries

Authors : Rahile Kizilkaya Yilmaz

Pages : 155-181

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Publication Date : 2022-03-18

Article Type : Research

Abstract :Imām Mālik’s (d. 179/795) Muwatta’ is made up of different components: Prophet Muhammad’s words and actions, and opinions, rulings of the Prophet’s companions, their successors and some subsequent authorities. Imām Mālik constantly revised this work and cropped the contents of it. For that reason, it contains a number of transmissions by Imām Mālik’s students. In addition, many important commentaries have been written about Muwatta’. The most famous of these were created by Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr (d. 463/1071) who compiled the two commentaries: al-Tamhīd and al-Istidhkār. Full name of the first book is al-Tamhīd li mā fī al-Muwatta’ min al-ma‘ānī wa al-asānīd; the full name of the second book is al-Istidhkār li madhhab ‘ulamā’ al-amsār fī mā tadammanahu al-Muwatta’ min ma‘ānī al-ra’ī wa al-āthār. Abū Umar al-Namarī al-Andalusī al-Qurtubī al-Mālikī, commonly known as Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr was an eleventh-century Mālikī judge and scholar. He has an important standing as specialist in discipline of hadīth and a Mālikī jurist. In this article, I will lay out the purpose of Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr in writing al-Tamhīd and in al-Istidhkār and the structure of these two commentaries. This article will start by introducing the subject and its importance in the hadīth literature. In addition, it will provide essential information about Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr’s life based on primary sources about him. Then, his works and their importance will be discussed. The article will specifically focus on his scholarly personality based on the accounts by his teachers and his students, and his books. Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr’s reasoning behind and purposes of writing two commentaries on the same book, Muwatta’, will be examined. The article will compare his two commentaries, al-Tamhīd and in al-Istidhkār, in the context of their contents, their authentic aspects, and their process of writing according to scholars’ arguments. This will help us understand why the author of al-Tamhīd and al-Istidhkār needed to write two commentaries on the same book.
Keywords : Hadīth, Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, al-Tamhīd, al-Istidhkār, Commentary, Isnād