Introduction

Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Hajar al-Haytami (d. 974 AH / 1567 CE) was the preeminent Shafi'i scholar of the Arabian Peninsula in the sixteenth century and is commonly designated al-Shafi'i al-Hijazi — the Shafi'i of the Hijaz — to distinguish his scholarly authority from that of al-Ramli, who held the equivalent position in Egypt. Born near Abul-Haytam in the Egyptian Delta, he received his early training at al-Azhar before relocating to Makkah, where he spent most of his scholarly life and from which his legal opinions and fatwa collections circulated throughout the Muslim world. Among his many works — in fiqh, hadith, theology, and Sufism — Tuhfat al-Muhtaj bi-Sharh al-Minhaj stands as his definitive jurisprudential achievement: a ten-volume commentary on Imam al-Nawawi's Minhaj al-Talibin that became one of the two standard references of the Shafi'i school.

Ibn Hajar al-Haytami composed Tuhfat al-Muhtaj at the height of his scholarly maturity, drawing on decades of teaching, fatwa-issuing, and legal deliberation. Unlike a purely academic commentary, the Tuhfah reflects Ibn Hajar's immersion in the practical religious life of his community: questions of pilgrimage law, trade, marriage and divorce, endowment (waqf), and theological matters that arose among ordinary Muslims and scholars alike all find careful treatment here. His legal style is marked by precision in distinguishing between the school's positions, attention to the reasoning (ta'lil) underlying rulings, and a willingness to engage and rebut divergent views — not only from within the school but from other madhahib — with scholarly rigor and argumentative clarity.

The place of Tuhfat al-Muhtaj in the Shafi'i tradition is inseparable from its relationship to Nihayat al-Muhtaj by al-Ramli. The two works developed in parallel — both commentaries on the Minhaj, both composed in the same generation, but from scholars grounded in different geographical centers of Shafi'i practice (the Hijaz and Egypt respectively). Later Shafi'i scholars consolidated a two-reference system: in most regions, a mufti wishing to determine the relied-upon position consults both Ibn Hajar and al-Ramli. When they agree, the matter is settled. When they differ, regional custom (and the guidance of local Shafi'i authorities) typically determines which opinion to follow — with Hadrami, Yemeni, and Southeast Asian Shafi'is generally giving priority to Ibn Hajar.

Students who wish to benefit from Tuhfat al-Muhtaj should approach it after acquiring a firm foundation in the Minhaj through one of the shorter commentaries — al-Iqna' of al-Khatib al-Shirbini or Fath al-Mu'in are common entry points. The Tuhfah should then be read alongside its companion hashiyahs, particularly those of al-Shirwani and Ibn Qasim al-'Abbadi, which were composed specifically to annotate and clarify Ibn Hajar's text and are printed in the standard multi-volume edition. Reading Tuhfat al-Muhtaj and Nihayat al-Muhtaj in parallel on major chapters of fiqh remains the gold standard of advanced Shafi'i learning and is the method followed in the great centers of Shafi'i scholarship from the Haramain and Yemen to the Islamic institutions of Malaysia and Indonesia.