سراج المهتدين في آداب الصالحين

Siraj al-Muhtadin fi Adab al-Salihin

A concise collection of Prophetic guidance on Islamic manners, character and spiritual conduct by the celebrated Andalusian Mālikī jurist, muḥaddith and Qurʾānic commentator Qāḍī Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh Ibn al-ʿArabī al-Maʿāfirī al-Ishbīlī (468–543 AH), author of Aḥkām al-Qurʾān and ʿĀriḍat al-Aḥwadhī. Although considerably less known than his major works of Fiqh, Tafsīr and Ḥadīth commentary, Sirāj al-Muhtadīn provides an interesting example of Ibn al-ʿArabī's writing in the field of Prophetic ethics and religious cultivation.

The work consists principally of a selection of Prophetic sayings and counsels intended to guide the believer in righteous conduct. Its subject matter centres upon ādāb, moral refinement, spiritual instruction and the qualities expected of the righteous Muslim. Its compact format makes it less a technical work of Ḥadīth commentary than a practical anthology of Prophetic wisdom intended to provide the reader with guidance for personal religious life. Contemporary catalogues consequently classify it variously under Ḥadīth, Islamic ethics and spiritual conduct.

Of particular interest is the explanation offered by the book's editor, the Moroccan scholar and manuscript expert Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Amīn Būkhubzah al-Ḥasanī (1932–2020). Būkhubzah concluded from Ibn al-ʿArabī's introduction that the work was composed in conscious relation to al-Shihāb fī al-Mawāʿiẓ wa’l-Ādāb of al-Quḍāʿī. According to his analysis, Ibn al-ʿArabī was dissatisfied with the inclusion of weak and unreliable reports in that earlier collection and therefore sought in Sirāj al-Muhtadīn to produce a collection of similar ethical and admonitory character while avoiding that deficiency. This gives the work an important place among the early attempts to compile concise Prophetic material specifically for adab, exhortation and moral instruction.

The book will therefore appeal both to students interested in the lesser-known writings of Qāḍī Ibn al-ʿArabī and to readers seeking a compact classical collection of Prophetic teachings on character and righteous living. It also offers an interesting point of comparison with other medieval anthologies of ethical aḥādīth and aphoristic Prophetic teachings.

The Dār Ibn Ḥazm, Beirut edition has been critically edited by Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Amīn Būkhubzah al-Ḥasanī, with further care and review by Badr ibn ʿAbd al-Ilāh al-ʿImrānī al-Ṭanjī. It is the first edition, 1430 AH / 2009 CE, published in a single hardback volume of 226 pages