Murteza Bedir, ed., Abū Ḥafṣ Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Nasafī’s Taḥṣīl Uṣūl al-Fiqh wa Tafṣīl al-Maqālāt fīhā ʿalā ʾl-Wajh

Abstract

Murteza Bedir’s edition of the relatively unknown Taḥṣīl Uṣūl al-Fiqh wa Tafṣīl al-Maqālāt fīhā ʿala ʾl-Wajh by the renowned scholar Abū Ḥafṣ Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Nasafī (d. 537 AH/1142 CE) is a welcome addition to the sources available for the study of Islamic legal theory. The text itself is a short treatise on the basics of uṣūl al-fiqh, written in a concise and efficient manner to summarize the main points of the discipline for the average madrasa student in twelfth-century mā warāʾ al-nahr (Transoxania). For this reason, the Taḥṣīl has the potential to be an excellent teaching resource for twenty-first century Islamic law classrooms that would rival the enduring popularity of Imam al-Ḥaramayn Ḍiyāʾ al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Malik al-Juwaynī’s (d. 478 AH/1085 CE) Waraqāt. The Taḥṣīl is also a fascinating research source in its own right, especially as knowledge of its existence––and the existence of al-Nasafī’s larger anthology of which it is a part, Maṭlaʿ al-Nujūm wa Majmaʿ al-ʿUlūm––has long been limited to a small group of scholars. The Maṭlaʿ––and consequently, the Taḥṣīl––is found in only two copies, one held at the Biruni Institute in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, and another at the Raza Library in Rampur, India. Written within the chronological, geographic, and intellectual vicinity of ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn al-Samarqandī’s (d. c. 540 AH/1145 CE) Mīzān al-Uṣūl fī Natāʾij al-ʿUqūl and Abū ʾl-Thanāʾ Maḥmūd al-Lāmishī’s (d. after 539 AH/1144 CE) Kitāb fī Uṣūl al-Fiqh, the Taḥṣīl offers us the opportunity to understand how one of the greatest Ḥanafī scholars of Samarqand understood and taught uṣūl al-fiqh alongside his Samarqandī colleagues. Bedir’s edition of the Taḥṣīl facilitates readers’ engagement with this important work by providing not only a clear, organized text, but also an insightful analysis of the extant manuscript copies and a crucial argument for the place of this work in the history of Ḥanafī uṣūl al-fiqh.

Keywords

• Murteza Bedir
• Abū Ḥafṣ Najm al-Dīn
• Umar al-Nasafī’s Taḥṣīl Uṣūl al-Fiqh wa Tafṣīl al-Maqālāt fīhā ʿalā ʾl-Wajh

Murteza Bedir, ed., Abū Ḥafṣ Najm al-Dīn ʿUmar al-Nasafī’s Taḥṣīl Uṣūl al-Fiqh wa Tafṣīl al-Maqālāt fīhā ʿalā ʾl-Wajh

Abstract