حاشية الشنواني على إتحاف المريد شرح جوهرة التوحيد-ابن حزم

Hashiyat al-Shanwani 'ala Ithaf al-Murid Sharh Jawharat al-Tawhid

An extensive advanced commentary in Ashʿarī theology by the Egyptian Shāfiʿī scholar Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Shanwānī (d. 1233 AH). The work belongs to the rich commentarial tradition surrounding Jawharat al-Tawḥīd, the celebrated didactic poem on Sunni creed by Imām Ibrāhīm al-Laqānī (d. 1041 AH). More precisely, al-Shanwānī's work is a ḥāshiyah upon ʿAbd al-Salām al-Laqānī’s (d. 1078 AH) Itḥāf al-Murīd, itself one of the principal commentaries on his father’s Jawharah.

The work thus brings together three successive scholarly layers: the concise verses of Jawharat al-Tawḥīd, ʿAbd al-Salām al-Laqānī’s detailed explanation in Itḥāf al-Murīd, and al-Shanwānī’s further annotations and investigations. It is intended for advanced study rather than as an introductory manual, expanding upon difficult expressions, refining theological arguments and engaging with the technical discussions of the later Ashʿarī tradition. The underlying Jawharah deals with the central subjects of ʿilm al-tawḥīd, including the divine attributes, prophethood and transmitted doctrines (samʿiyyāt), while the successive layers of commentary provide the proofs, distinctions and technical discussions required for their detailed study.

Al-Shanwānī's Ḥāshiyah is therefore particularly valuable for readers studying the mature post-classical Ashʿarī tradition, where concise statements of doctrine are subjected to close analysis and their rational implications, objections and qualifications are carefully examined. It also provides an important witness to the place of Jawharat al-Tawḥīd within the traditional curriculum of theology and to the extensive scholarly literature that developed around this influential text.

This handsome Dār Ibn Ḥazm, Beirut edition was published in 2023 in three volumes comprising approximately 1,602 pages. It was prepared through Markaz Amīr li-Taḥqīq al-Makhṭūṭāt in Kirkuk, with the scholarly work undertaken by ʿUthmān Ḥusayn ʿAlwān al-Nadāwī, Isḥāq ʿAbd al-Jabbār, Abū Bakr Qaḥṭān al-ʿIzzī and Fuʾād Fārūq Ẓāhir.