إتحاف المريد شرح جوهرة التوحيد

Ithaf al-Murid Sharh Jawharat al-Tawhid

One of the principal classical commentaries on Jawharat al-Tawḥīd, the celebrated didactic poem in Ashʿarī theology composed by the Mālikī scholar Imām Ibrāhīm ibn Ibrāhīm al-Laqānī (d. 1041 AH). Itḥāf al-Murīd was written by his son, the distinguished Egyptian Mālikī scholar ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Ibrāhīm al-Laqānī (d. 1078 AH), and became an important text in the later teaching tradition of ʿilm al-tawḥīd.

The work expands the tightly compressed verses of the Jawharah into a systematic treatment of the central questions of Sunni theology. Among its discussions are the nature and obligation of theological knowledge, the rational categories of wājib, mustaḥīl and jāʾiz, the question of taqlīd in matters of creed, the createdness of the world, faith and Islam, and the detailed treatment of the divine attributes. These are followed by the subjects of prophethood and the transmitted doctrines (samʿiyyāt), making the work a substantial exposition of the classical Ashʿarī theological curriculum rather than merely a linguistic explanation of the poem.

ʿAbd al-Salām explains in the opening of the work that he had previously produced a short condensation from his father's ʿUmdat al-Murīd, entitled Irshād al-Murīd. He subsequently composed Itḥāf al-Murīd to provide a fuller explanation of the wording of the Jawharah and greater assistance in understanding its meanings. This more expansive treatment proved influential in its own right and subsequently attracted a considerable tradition of glosses and supercommentaries, including those of al-Amīr and al-Shanwānī.

The Dār al-Daqqāq, Damascus edition is particularly useful in that it brings Itḥāf al-Murīd together with al-Niẓām al-Farīd bi-Taḥqīq Jawharat al-Tawḥīd of the eminent twentieth-century scholar Muḥammad Muḥyī al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Ḥamīd. The volume was prepared with the care of ʿAlāʾ Samīr al-Ṭūkhī al-Ṭawwāf.