as-Sharwani (in full Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Ḥamza al-Ramlī al-Sharwānī, d. 1022 AH / c. 1613) was a Shāfiʿī jurist whose marginal commentary (ḥāshiya) on the Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj bi-Sharḥ al-Minhāj of Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī became one of the standard glosses printed alongside that work in the editions of Islamic law used throughout the Indian Archipelago. Snouck Hurgronje cites the Tuḥfah repeatedly in The Achehnese in the marginally noted edition of as-Sharwani printed at Cairo in A. H. 1305 (1887–1888).
The Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj is itself a commentary on the Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn of the great Shāfiʿī imam al-Nawawī, and as-Sharwani’s gloss — printed in the margins of the standard editions — provides the detailed working out of the school’s doctrines on questions of marriage, inheritance, fasting, prayer and the like. It is from this layered tradition of commentary and super-commentary that the Achehnese kalis and teungkus drew the rules of the Shāfiʿī ritual which they applied in Acheh.
In the chapter on marriage, Snouck invokes as-Sharwani’s edition of the Tuḥfah in support of the proposition that Mohammedan law “not only places no impediment in the way of contracts of marriage between children, but even expressly permits girls under age to be handed over to their husbands when, as the saying is, ‘they can endure the married state’”. The expression in question is cited from Vol. VI p. 442 of the marginally noted edition of as-Sharwani of Cairo, A. H. 1305 — a passage that Snouck uses to reconcile the Shāfiʿī rule of guardianship with the deeply rooted Achehnese prejudice against allowing a maiden to remain unmarried till her majority. The same edition of the Tuḥfah is then cited for the complicated doctrine of taqlīd (the partial adoption, in exceptional cases, of the ritual of another imam — for example of the Ḥanafī school by a Shāfiʿī), the best exposition of which, Snouck tells us, is to be found in Vol. VIII pp. 315 et seq. of as-Sharwani’s marginalia.
In the later chapters of the book, devoted to the performance of neglected religious duties (galats) by deputy and to the payment of the indemnity (fidyah) in money or grain, Snouck again refers to as-Sharwani’s edition of the Tuḥfah (Vol. III p. 231) for the technical details of the doctrine, observing that Mr. L. W. C. van den Berg “never mentions this either in his Mohammedaansch Recht or in his essay on the Afwijkingen”. The recurrence of the Tuḥfah in Snouck’s apparatus shows how the learned tradition of the Shāfiʿī school — mediated through the printed gloss of as-Sharwani — furnished the practical canon of religious law by which the Achehnese regulated their domestic and ritual life.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.
as-Sharwani (in full Shihāb al-Dīn Aḥmad ibn Ḥamza al-Ramlī al-Sharwānī, d. 1022 AH / c. 1613) was a Shāfiʿī jurist whose marginal commentary (ḥāshiya) on the Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj bi-Sharḥ al-Minhāj of Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī became one of the standard glosses printed alongside that work in the editions of Islamic law used throughout the Indian Archipelago. Snouck Hurgronje cites the Tuḥfah repeatedly in The Achehnese in the marginally noted edition of as-Sharwani printed at Cairo in A. H. 1305 (1887–1888).
The Tuḥfat al-Muḥtāj is itself a commentary on the Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn of the great Shāfiʿī imam al-Nawawī, and as-Sharwani’s gloss — printed in the margins of the standard editions — provides the detailed working out of the school’s doctrines on questions of marriage, inheritance, fasting, prayer and the like. It is from this layered tradition of commentary and super-commentary that the Achehnese kalis and teungkus drew the rules of the Shāfiʿī ritual which they applied in Acheh.
In the chapter on marriage, Snouck invokes as-Sharwani’s edition of the Tuḥfah in support of the proposition that Mohammedan law “not only places no impediment in the way of contracts of marriage between children, but even expressly permits girls under age to be handed over to their husbands when, as the saying is, ‘they can endure the married state’”. The expression in question is cited from Vol. VI p. 442 of the marginally noted edition of as-Sharwani of Cairo, A. H. 1305 — a passage that Snouck uses to reconcile the Shāfiʿī rule of guardianship with the deeply rooted Achehnese prejudice against allowing a maiden to remain unmarried till her majority. The same edition of the Tuḥfah is then cited for the complicated doctrine of taqlīd (the partial adoption, in exceptional cases, of the ritual of another imam — for example of the Ḥanafī school by a Shāfiʿī), the best exposition of which, Snouck tells us, is to be found in Vol. VIII pp. 315 et seq. of as-Sharwani’s marginalia.
In the later chapters of the book, devoted to the performance of neglected religious duties (galats) by deputy and to the payment of the indemnity (fidyah) in money or grain, Snouck again refers to as-Sharwani’s edition of the Tuḥfah (Vol. III p. 231) for the technical details of the doctrine, observing that Mr. L. W. C. van den Berg “never mentions this either in his Mohammedaansch Recht or in his essay on the Afwijkingen”. The recurrence of the Tuḥfah in Snouck’s apparatus shows how the learned tradition of the Shāfiʿī school — mediated through the printed gloss of as-Sharwani — furnished the practical canon of religious law by which the Achehnese regulated their domestic and ritual life.
See Also
Source
The Achehnese, Vol. I, by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, translated by A.W.S. O’Sullivan, indexed by R.J. Wilkinson. Leyden: E.J. Brill, 1906.