Introduction

Al-Hidayah fi Sharh Bidayat al-Mubtadi — commonly known simply as Al-Hidayah (The Guidance) — is the most authoritative manual of Hanafi jurisprudence ever written. Its author, Burhan ad-Din Ali ibn Abi Bakr al-Marghinani, was born around 511 AH in the Ferghana Valley of Central Asia and died in Samarqand in 593 AH / 1197 CE. He spent decades in the study of fiqh under the greatest Hanafi scholars of his era, and Al-Hidayah represents the culmination of that lifelong engagement with the legal tradition of Imam Abu Hanifah and his companions Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani.

The work was composed as a commentary on al-Marghinani's own earlier primer, Bidayat al-Mubtadi, which itself combined the texts of two foundational Hanafi works: the Mukhtasar of al-Quduri and al-Jami as-Saghir of Muhammad al-Shaybani. This layered structure meant that Al-Hidayah was anchored in the earliest transmitted Hanafi positions while simultaneously explaining and elaborating them with reasoned legal argument. Al-Marghinani did not merely record the madhab's conclusions; he consistently cited the Quran, the Sunnah, and the reasoning of the founding imams, making clear the evidentiary basis for each ruling.

Al-Hidayah spans four volumes and covers the full range of Islamic law from purification and prayer through commercial transactions, marriage, inheritance, criminal law, and jihad. What distinguished it from earlier Hanafi manuals was al-Marghinani's careful attention to the points of disagreement within the Hanafi school itself — between Abu Hanifah and his two principal students — and his engagement with the positions of the Shafi'i and Maliki schools where comparison was instructive. This jurisprudential honesty gave the work a scholarly depth rare for a teaching text.

The historical reach of Al-Hidayah is extraordinary. It became the standard reference for Hanafi judges across the Ottoman Empire, the Mughal courts of the Indian subcontinent, and the khanates of Central Asia. The Ottoman state used it as the basis for legal training, and it was among the first works of classical Islamic law to be translated into English, by Charles Hamilton in 1791. Generations of Muslim scholars in South Asia, the Arab world, and Central Asia have memorized its formulations and built their own careers around its mastery.

Students approaching Al-Hidayah for the first time should understand that it is simultaneously a legal text and a work of jurisprudence. Each ruling is presented with its proof, and disagreements are engaged rather than suppressed. The reader is expected to follow the reasoning, not simply accept conclusions. For this reason, Al-Hidayah has served both the student seeking to learn the Hanafi madhab and the advanced scholar seeking to understand why the madhab reached its positions. It has attracted numerous commentaries, the most celebrated being Fath al-Qadir by Ibn al-Humam and the commentary of the Ottoman jurist Babarti.

Reading Al-Hidayah within the tradition of Ahl us-Sunnah wal-Jama'ah, one encounters a fiqh grounded in transmitted knowledge, refined through centuries of scholarly scrutiny, and structured to produce judges and scholars capable of serving Muslim communities with sound legal guidance. It remains a living text, studied in seminaries from Deoband to Cairo, and its rulings continue to inform fatwas and court decisions wherever the Hanafi tradition holds.