The commentaries on the Tahdhīb

1More than fifty commentaries

The TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi counts more than fifty commentaries and glosses in library records. Kâtib Çelebi’s Kashf al-ẓunūn (I, 515–517), written in the seventeenth century, names about fifteen; Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur lists several dozen, with their manuscripts and prints; and ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd al-Turkmānī, in the introduction to his 2018 edition of al-Yazdī’s commentary, assembles from Kashf al-ẓunūn, Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn, Āghā Buzurg’s al-Dharīʿa and ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Ḥasanī’s Nuzhat al-khawāṭir a list of well over sixty commentaries on the text, dozens of glosses on al-Dawānī’s commentary, and some fifty glosses and commentaries on al-Yazdī’s. Many survive only in manuscript or are known only by name.

The vocabulary is the usual one: a sharḥ explains the matn, either ‘by lemmata’ (bi-l-qawl), quoting a phrase and then explaining it, or ‘mixed’ (mamzūj), weaving the matn into its own sentences; a ḥāshiya comments on a sharḥ; a taʿlīq is a looser set of notes. Kashf al-ẓunūn records the form of each commentary, and the difference mattered to readers: al-Dawānī’s and al-Yazdī’s commentaries are by lemmata, those of al-Ḥafīd and al-Khabīṣī are mixed.

2The first commentaries

The earliest commentators came from al-Taftāzānī’s own family and from the Mamluk scholars of Cairo. A descendant of the author, Shaykh al-Islām Aḥmad of Herat, known as al-Ḥafīd (‘the grandson’), wrote a mixed commentary; Kashf al-ẓunūn dates his death to about 906/1500, while Hadiyyat al-ʿārifīn, as cited by al-Turkmānī, says he was killed in 916/1510. In Cairo, Muḥyī al-Dīn al-Kāfiyajī (788–879/1386–1474) wrote an extensive commentary in the form ‘he said … I say’ (qāla, aqūlu), and Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm Ibn Abī al-Ṣafāʾ, a pupil of Ibn al-Humām, another one. Zayn al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Ibn al-ʿAynī (837–893/1434–1488) called his mixed commentary Jahd al-muqill (‘the effort of one who has little’) and remarked, according to Kashf al-ẓunūn, that he had not seen a commentary on this text in his lands; it has been printed.

Further early commentaries, listed by Kashf al-ẓunūn and al-Turkmānī, include the short mixed commentary of Hibat Allāh al-Ḥusaynī, known as Shāh Mīr; a commentary by Murshid b. al-Imām al-Shīrāzī, which names the Ottoman sultan Bāyezīd II in its heading; one by Muẓaffar al-Dīn ʿAlī al-Shīrāzī (d. 922/1516), who settled and died in Bursa; and a complete commentary on both the logic and the kalām parts by Ḥājj Maḥmūd al-Nayrīzī, who held a licence (ijāza) from Ṣadr al-Dīn al-Dashtakī; it carries a commendation by his teacher’s son, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr al-Dashtakī. Most of these remained in manuscript.

3Al-Dawānī’s commentary and its glosses

The most influential early commentary was written in Shiraz by Jalāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Asʿad al-Dawānī (d. 908/1502; Kashf al-ẓunūn has 907), chief judge of Fārs and one of the leading philosophers and theologians of his time. Kashf al-ẓunūn describes it as a commentary by lemmata, ‘useful, famous, but not completed’, and reports al-Dawānī’s own description: he did not simply follow what was well known but brought ‘investigations not found in the books in circulation’, although he dictated it ‘in haste, extemporaneously’. He called it ‘a hasty piece’ (ʿujāla). According to al-Turkmānī it breaks off at the end of the discussion of the simple modal propositions. It was printed in Lucknow in 1288 and 1293 and in Istanbul in 1305 and 1312, according to the TDV, and in Kanpur in 1317, according to Brockelmann.

Al-Dawānī’s rivalry with the Dashtakīs of Shiraz, described by Andrew Newman in the Encyclopaedia Iranica, produced a literature of glosses and counter-glosses on several texts, and the Tahdhīb commentary was drawn in: the TDV notes that Ghiyāth al-Dīn Manṣūr al-Dashtakī wrote a rebuttal of it. Kashf al-ẓunūn lists glosses on it by Mīr Abū al-Fatḥ al-Saʿīdī (d. about 950/1543), who added a completion (takmila) of the unfinished commentary, by Abū al-Ḥasan al-Abīwardī ‘Dānishmand’, by Muṣliḥ al-Dīn al-Lārī (d. 979 or 980/1572), and by Ḥusayn al-Khalkhālī, who finished his gloss for his son in Jumādā II 1006/1598; and a treatise on it written in Damascus in Rajab 952/1545 by Aḥmad al-Qazwīnī. Al-Turkmānī adds the glosses of al-Dawānī’s pupil Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd al-Shīrāzī, of Mīr Fakhr al-Dīn al-Sammākī, the teacher of Mīr Dāmād, of Fatḥ Allāh al-Shīrāzī, and al-Yazdī’s own gloss, al-Kharrāra.

In the Ottoman madrasas, Mīr Abū al-Fatḥ’s gloss became known simply as ‘Mīr’, and al-Dawānī with Mīr was the advanced way into the Tahdhīb (see ‘The Īsāghūjī in the madrasa’ for an eighteenth-century Ottoman study plan). Brockelmann lists Ottoman super-glosses on Mīr, among them one by Ismāʿīl al-Kalanbawī (Gelenbevî), whose gloss was printed in Istanbul in 1288/1871–72. One edition in circulation prints the Tahdhīb with al-Dawānī’s commentary, Mīr Abū al-Fatḥ’s gloss and al-Kalanbawī’s super-gloss together.

4‘Mullā Jalāl’ and Mīr Zāhid in India

In India al-Dawānī’s commentary was known as ‘Mullā Jalāl’, and Francis Robinson’s list of the logic books of the Dars-i Niẓāmī includes it under that name, described as a gloss on al-Dawānī’s commentary. The gloss that made it a classroom text was that of the qāḍī Mīr Zāhid al-Harawī, who died in Kabul in 1101/1689 according to Brockelmann and al-Turkmānī (Robinson gives 1699–1700). Al-Turkmānī calls it ‘a very subtle gloss, which the scholars received with acceptance and included in their teaching courses’. It was printed in Lucknow in 1287 and 1293, and in Delhi in 1316 with the gloss of ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq Khayrābādī.

Glosses on al-Dawānī’s commentary and on Mīr Zāhid’s gloss became a speciality of the North Indian families of scholars. Brockelmann and al-Turkmānī, drawing on Nuzhat al-khawāṭir, name among others Qāḍī Mubārak of Gūpāmaw (d. 1162/1748), the author of the best-known commentary on Sullam al-ʿulūm; Muḥammad Ḥasan of Sihālī (d. 1199/1785); Baḥr al-ʿUlūm ʿAbd al-ʿAlī of Lucknow; Shāh ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz of Delhi; Faḍl-i Imām Khayrābādī, the author of al-Mirqāt; ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm al-Laknawī; and his son ʿAbd al-Ḥayy al-Laknawī, whose al-Taʿlīq al-ʿajīb li-ḥall Sharḥ al-Tahdhīb explains al-Dawānī’s commentary. Since Robinson’s list contains both al-Yazdī’s ‘Sharḥ-i Tahdhīb’ and ‘Mullā Jalāl’, an Indian student could meet the Tahdhīb twice, at two levels.

5The commentaries on the ‘rule’

One passage of the Tahdhīb attracted commentaries of its own: the ‘rule of the conditions of the four figures’ (ḍābiṭat sharāʾiṭ al-arbaʿa), in which al-Taftāzānī reduces all the conditions of the four syllogistic figures to one formula. Al-Yazdī wrote a commentary on it at the request of his teacher Jamāl al-Dīn Maḥmūd, and so did his fellow student Mīrzā Jān Ḥabīb Allāh al-Bāghnawī. In India the passage remained a test of skill: Brockelmann records an Indian collection of 1273/1856–57 with commentaries on it by Mīrzā Jān and others, and further commentaries printed in the 1290s/1870s, among them one by ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm al-Laknawī; al-Turkmānī also names commentaries by Muftī Saʿd Allāh of Murādābād and by Muḥammad Qāʾim of Allahabad. Al-Turkmānī’s 2018 edition prints those of Mīrzā Jān, al-Yazdī, Saʿd Allāh and ʿAbd al-Ḥalīm after al-Yazdī’s commentary.

6Al-Khabīṣī’s al-Tadhhīb and the Arab lands

In Egypt the commentary of choice was al-Tadhhīb (‘the gilding’), a mixed commentary of middle length by ʿUbayd Allāh b. Faḍl Allāh al-Khabīṣī, as the glosses of Azhar scholars and the many Cairo prints show. Kashf al-ẓunūn reports that he wrote it after studying al-Taftāzānī’s commentary on the Shamsiyya, that his preface mentions a certain ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Khān, and that he explained his purpose thus: the Tahdhīb contains most of the questions of the Shamsiyya, and students are confused by its difficult questions because of its extreme brevity, so he wrote a commentary of moderate length. His dates are uncertain. Library catalogues follow al-Ziriklī in placing his death around 1050/1640; Brockelmann writes ‘um 1050/1640’; the sources consulted do not identify the ʿAbd al-Laṭīf Khān of his preface.

Al-Tadhhīb was glossed by Yāsīn al-ʿUlaymī of Ḥimṣ, by the Tunisian Muḥammad b. ʿAlī b. Saʿīd al-Ḥajarī (d. 1199/1785), by Ḥasan al-ʿAṭṭār (d. 1250/1834), later shaykh of al-Azhar, and by Muḥammad b. Aḥmad b. ʿArafa al-Dasūqī (d. 1230/1815), whose gloss is called al-Tajrīd al-shāfī; a gloss compiled by Muḥammad ʿUbāda al-ʿAdawī records the lectures of Aḥmad al-Dardīr. The Cairo presses printed it repeatedly: al-ʿAṭṭār’s gloss with al-Ḥajarī’s in the margin appeared at the Azhar press in 1318/1900–01, al-Ḥajarī’s gloss was printed with corrections by Muḥammad ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Sharnūbī, and editions combining the glosses of al-Dasūqī, al-ʿAṭṭār and al-Sharnūbī still circulate. In the twentieth century the Azhar professor ʿAbd al-Mutaʿāl al-Ṣaʿīdī (1894–1966) wrote Tajdīd ʿilm al-manṭiq, notes on al-Khabīṣī, and Īḍāḥ al-manṭiq al-qadīm on the Tahdhīb and al-Khabīṣī’s commentary, reprinted in Cairo in 2021.

Other Arab commentaries include Tanwīr al-mashriq by Aḥmad al-Maḥallī, printed at the Saʿāda press in Cairo in 1331/1913, and, in Yemen, the commentary of al-Ḥasan b. Aḥmad al-Jalāl (1014–1084/1605–1673; Brockelmann gives his death as 1079/1668), printed in Beirut in 1985 with a gloss; the catalogue record also names al-Ḥasan b. al-Ḥusayn b. al-Qāsim (d. 1114/1702) and al-Ḥusayn b. Aḥmad al-Siyāghī (1180–1221/1766–1806) as contributors. The Kurdish scholar ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Sanandajī published Taqrīb al-marām, a commentary on the kalām part, at Būlāq in 1318–1319/1900–01, and the Cairo edition of the whole text of 1330/1912 was prepared, with notes on the kalām part, by ʿAbd al-Qādir Maʿrūf al-Kurdī al-Sanandajī.

7Iran, Central Asia and the Ottoman lands

Besides al-Yazdī, whose commentary has its own article, Iranian and Central Asian scholars wrote commentaries in Arabic and Persian. ʿIṣām al-Dīn Ibrāhīm al-Isfarāʾinī (d. 944/1537 in Samarqand) wrote one that survives in manuscript; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Shīrāzī finished one in 953/1546; and ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Lāhījī (d. 1072/1662) wrote a Persian commentary that al-Turkmānī describes as close to al-Yazdī’s. The Persian commentary of Jamāl al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Maḥmūd al-Ḥusaynī was printed in India, in Lucknow and Kanpur, according to Brockelmann. The Shiʿi scholar Muḥammad al-Karmī wrote al-Nafaḥāt al-Muḥammadiyya, also called ‘the new gloss’ (al-ḥāshiya al-jadīda) on the Tahdhīb.

Ottoman scholars, besides glossing al-Dawānī and Mīr, wrote commentaries of their own: Dāwūd al-Qārisī (d. 1169/1756), who also completed al-Dawānī’s commentary; the Bosnian judge Muṣṭafā b. Yūsuf al-Mostārī (Eyyûbîzâde), whose commentary is called Tawḍīḥ al-manṭiq wa-l-kalām; Mehmed Emin Üsküdârî, whose commentary was the subject of a Turkish thesis by M. Zahit Tiryaki (2007); Ghānim al-Baghdādī, author of al-Wasīṭ; and, in the late nineteenth century, ʿUthmān b. ʿAbd al-Mannān of Ṣandūqlī in the province of Izmir (d. 1301/1884), author of Khulāṣat al-manṭiq.

8Versifications, translations and modern work

The TDV and Brockelmann record a versification of the Tahdhīb by Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr Ibn Abī Sharīf al-Maqdisī, and al-Turkmānī a commentary by Manṣūr b. ʿAlī al-Manūfī on a versification of its modal propositions. In Persian there are modern translations and commentaries of the Tahdhīb by Ḥasan Malikshāhī and Muṣṭafā Lāhūtī, and a translation of al-Yazdī’s commentary (Tehran: Ṣabā, 1394 Sh/2015–16). In Urdu, Brockelmann records a commentary by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān of Ghazipur printed in Benares in 1317/1899–1900, and Muftī Saʿīd Aḥmad Pālanpūrī wrote Miftāḥ al-Tahdhīb; Urdu commentaries on al-Yazdī’s commentary include al-Tashīl wa-l-tartīb by Ṣiddīq Aḥmad Bāndawī, Anwār al-Tahdhīb, Ṣarḥ al-labīb, Sirāj al-Tahdhīb and al-Taqrīb.

The matn was printed many times: Brockelmann records prints with commentaries in Calcutta in 1243/1827–28 and Delhi in 1276/1859–60, the Bibliotheca Alexandrina holds a print of 1876 from the Nāmī press, and the Cairo edition of the Saʿāda press (1330/1912) gives the whole text with notes on the kalām part. Modern studies are few among the sources consulted. Besides the theses and editions already mentioned, the Amman edition of al-Turkmānī (2018) is the most useful modern edition of al-Yazdī with its Indian glosses; an Iranian article of 2026 studies al-Yazdī’s influence on ʿAllāma Ṭabāṭabāʾī; and al-Khabīṣī’s commentary has been reissued in Cairo (Dār al-Imām al-Rāzī, 2015). The entries of the catalogue give the details known for each work.