Revision in the Manuscript Age

Previous articleNext article FreeRevision in the Manuscript Age: New Evidence of Early Versions of Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-bārīJoel BlecherJoel BlecherGeorge Washington University Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMore“I never saw anybody who wrote a book, and did not say the next day: If this would be changed, it would be better, and if something like this would be added, it would be preferable.”al-Baysānī1IntroductionWhat was it like to compose and revise a multi-volume work of Islamic exegesis in the manuscript age? This essay examines a newly-discovered manuscript that contains two early versions of Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s (d. ah 852/ad 1449) renowned ḥadīth commentary, Fatḥ al-bārī. The copy was first dictated by Ibn Ḥajar to another scholar almost twenty years prior to the work’s official “completion” (khatm), pronounced in 842/1438, and almost thirty years before the work’s unofficial completion with Ibn Ḥajar’s passing. The manuscript also preserves emendations and elaborations that Ibn Ḥajar added in a later version. An analysis of the multiple layers of revision contained in this document not only advances our understanding of how Ibn Ḥajar refined his exegetical strategies as he composed his magnum opus ; it also brings to light the way in which exegesis was influenced by the complex social practice of drafting, revising, and completing a multi-volume work in the competitive and pious Mamluk scholarly environment.Despite the fact that multi-volume works of exegesis composed in the Mamluk period were often written across several decades, such works have often been treated largely as finished products, or static representations of an author’s thought.2 Perhaps this is because our own scholarly culture’s roots in philological work and the field’s continuing need for critical editions have driven our fascination with the aṣl, the definitive hand-exemplar.3 Or perhaps this is because a number of works strive to achieve the effect of “completion,” smoothing over the rough edges that inevitably emerge in any compositional process. But a substantial intellectual work is not only a representation of an author’s vision, it is also necessarily a representation of an author’s revision. By mining archives that are littered with Mamluk-era material artifacts of works-in-progress, as Frédéric Bauden, Li Guo, Sami Massoud, and others have already begun to do, we can bring to light these stories that sit at the intersection of Mamluk social and intellectual history.4The case study in which I will explore the broader theme of revision in the manuscript age is the composition of Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī’s Fatḥ al-bārī, a multi-volume commentary on the prestigious ḥadīth collection Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī. It is a work that Islamicist Norman Calder once called “the most magnificent achievement of exegetical discourse.”5 What were the social and intellectual challenges and considerations that came into play as this work was revised in the context of Mamluk-era scholarly culture? While most of our understanding about the composition process of Fatḥ al-bārī has come from reading narrative sources like biographical dictionaries and authorial prefaces, an examination of new manuscript evidence can yield new insights into the development of Ibn Ḥajar’s magnum opus, and the composition of exegetical works more broadly in the context of the Mamluk period.A Recently Discovered Early Copy of Fatḥ al-bārī, Dictated to a StudentWhile I was digging through copies of Fatḥ al-bārī at the manuscript library attached to the Suleymaniye in Istanbul in the summer of 2014, one in particular caught my eye: a partial copy shelved under “Mahmud Paşa 79.” There, in the colophon, a scribe claimed the work was dictated to him by Ibn Ḥajar in 822/1419 (see Figs. 1 and 2),6 roughly ten years before parts of the work were first commissioned by potentates of Transoxania and Tunisia,7 twenty years before the entire work was publically pronounced “complete” at a celebratory concluding reading (khatm) in 842/1438,8 and thirty years before Ibn Ḥajar’s death in 852/1449. Mahmud Paşa 79 begins by commenting on chapters of the adhān (the call to prayer) and concludes by commenting on the kitāb al-zakāt (alms tax), which corroborates Ibn Ḥajar’s own account that he had largely composed about a third of the work by 822/1419, and had dictated portions of it to students:9Figure 1. —The colophon of Mahmud Paşa 79 that states the work was copied “from the dictation” of “al-Imām al-Ḥāfiẓ” Abū al-Faḍl Ibn Ḥajar.View Large ImageDownload PowerPointFigure 2. —The colophon of Mahmud Paşa 79 states that the volume was completed on the last hour before dawn on Monday, Shaʿbān 17th, 822 / September 18th, 1419.View Large ImageDownload PowerPointSee Fig. 1: ʿallaqahu li-nafsih min imlāʾ sayyidī wa-mufīdī al-Imām al-Ḥāfiẓ al-ʿAlīm /1/ Abī al-Faḍl Aḥmad al-Maḥmūd Abī al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Ḥajar /2/ amtaʿ Allāh bi-hayātihi afqar ʿibād Allāh wa-aḥwājuhum ilā /3/ maghfiratihi wa-ʿafwihi Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Ḥayāt /4/ al-Khiḍr ibn Abī Sulaymān Dāwūd al-Miṣrī /5/ ʿafā Allāh ʿanhum ijmaʿīn /6/10See Fig. 2: wa-wāfiq al-farāgh min hādhā al-mujallad fī ṣabīḥat nahār al-ithnayn sābiʿ ʿishrīn shaʿbān muʿaẓẓam ʿām ithnayn wa-ʿishrīn wa-thamānī miʾa bi’l-madrasa al-Nāṣiriyya Bayn al-Qaṣrayn /1/ bi’l-Qāhira al-Maḥrūsa ḥamāha Allāhu taʿālā wa-sāʾir bilād al-Muslimīn /2/11Adjacent to the colophon, a marginal note indicates that additions (zawāʾid) were incorporated into this copy in 850/1446, based on a version transmitted by Ibn Ḥajar’s long-time companion and distinguished recitation assistant, Burhān al-Dīn ibn Khiḍr (see Fig. 3).12 Rather than being destroyed or discarded, as many holograph drafts were,13 or preserved “as is” for posterity, a later hand updated the early dictated copy with Ibn Ḥajar’s additional passages. It must have been seen to have had some practical or symbolic value, likely as a source for future copies, or a reference work that could be modified as Ibn Ḥajar updated his copy. Both the colophon and the audition statement adjacent to it pray that God keep and preserve Ibn Ḥajar’s life, corroborating the fact that Ibn Ḥajar was alive at the time the colophons were recorded.Figure 3. —The audition statement adjacent to the colophon testifies that the copy was collated with the documented elaborations (alzawāʾid) that the author [i.e. Ibn Ḥajar] added to it according to a copy of Shaykh Burhān al-Dīn Ibn Khidr in Ramadan 850/ November or December 1446.View Large ImageDownload PowerPointThe note does not stipulate that Ibn Khiḍr’s copy was an exemplar (aṣl), and as we will see, the zawāʾid only partly reflect the recension preserved in modern printed editions.14 In effect, this manuscript, Mahmud Paşa 79, preserves not one but two early versions of Fatḥ al-bārī.See Fig. 3: al-ḥamdullilāh /1/ balagha muqābalatan bi-ḥasab al-ṭāqa wa-kitābat al-zawāʾid alladhīna zādahā /2/ al-muʾallaf abqāhu Allāhu taʿāllā wa mataʿ Allāh bi-ḥayātihi ʿalā nuskhat al-Shaykh /3/ Burhān al-Dīn Ibn Khiḍr fī shahr Ramaḍān sanat khamsīn /4/ wa-thamānī miʾa aḥsan Allāhu ʿāqabahā /5/15Who was the scribe who received Fatḥ al-bārī years in advance of rulers in the Islamic east and west? Apparently a mid-level bureaucrat and an aspiring scholar named Ibn al-Miṣrī.16 The full name given in the colophon is Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Ḥayāt al-Khiḍr ibn Abī Sulaymān Dāwūd al-Miṣrī, and we are fortunate that Ibn Ḥajar happened to write his obituary. According to Ibn Ḥajar, Muḥammad ibn al-Khiḍr ibn Dāwūd, also known as Shams al-Dīn and Ibn al-Miṣrī, was born in Aleppo around 768/1366–67 and died in Jerusalem in 841/1437–38.17 He grew up studying with a number of reputable scholars in Greater Syria, after which he settled in Cairo for a time, and performed scribal work at the chancery (dīwān al-inshāʿ) at the pleasure of a high ranking minister for the military (nāẓir al-jaysh). Ibn al-Miṣrī then travelled to Jerusalem, where he was appointed Shaykh at a madrasa called al-Bāsiṭiyya. Most significantly for our purposes, the obituary states that Ibn al-Miṣrī had written down Ibn Ḥajar’s dictated commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī.18 Ibn al-Miṣrī’s early dictated copy, shelved as Mahmud Paşa 79, must be that very copy that Ibn Ḥajar mentioned in the obituary.Where and for whom did Ibn al-Miṣrī copy Ibn Ḥajar’s dictation of Fatḥ al-bārī? The colophon states that it was completed at the madrasa named for al-Nāṣir Muḥammad ibn Qalāwūn (al-Nāṣiriyya), in a neighborhood of Cairo lodged between two Fatimidera palaces, Bayn al-Qaṣrayn (see Fig. 2).19 The copy was made for Ibn al-Miṣrī’s private use (ʿallaqahu linafsihi, see Fig. 1).20 A lack of formality of the handwriting suggests as much, as any scribe in the service of the chancery would surely be capable of calligraphy more consistent with professional conventions.Note that I use the phrase “early dictated copy” here rather than “draft,” since the technical terms naskh (“copy”) and min imlāʾ (“from dictation”) were used in the colophon and audition statements to describe the manuscript rather than musawwada (“draft”), which would better describe a rough draft composed in the author’s own hand. That said, to suggest a better but still imperfect analogy, we might think of this early dictated copy less like a rough draft that was polished into a final copy, and more like an “advance copy” of a first edition that was later expanded and revised for a second and third edition. Nevertheless, it should be clear that this document offers us a rare opportunity to see both the social and intellectual considerations pertaining to the revision of Fatḥ al-bārī over the course of its composition. Indeed, this manuscript can shed light on at least three layers of revisions and additions that Fatḥ al-bārī underwent.To offer a rough idea of these additions quantitatively, we can compare the number of words in a sampling of text from the early dictated copy—say, the first three folios—with the total number included in printed editions that are based on later recensions of Fatḥ al-bārī.21 While the sample from Ibn al-Miṣrī’s copy contains 2,185 words, for instance, the printed editions contain 2,979 words, which means that 794 words were added later. More research needs to be done to refine this picture, but based on this limited sample, which appears consistent with my preliminary findings in other samples, roughly 25% (26.66%) of the “final” version did not appear in the earliest cersion. In other words, for every three words Ibn Ḥajar dictated in 822/1419, he would add one more by the time he passed away in 852/1449.On the one hand, a 25% change may seem of great consequence. Indeed, even a 1% change over the course of the work’s composition could be qualitatively significant. On the other hand, Fatḥ al-bārī was already a long work, by Ibn Ḥajar’s own concession.22 If roughly three-quarters of Fatḥ al-bārī were ready for the “final” exemplar in 822/1419, what made Ibn Ḥajar return to these earlier chapters, years later, to add more? Having established that this manuscript, “Mahmud Paşa 79,” is indeed an early dictated and later revised copy of Ibn Ḥajar’s Fatḥ al-bārī, the next question we must ask is: what kinds of revisions and expansions did Fatḥ al-bārī undergo, and why?Strategies of Revision and Expansion: Updating Fatḥ al-bārī Over TimeIbn Ḥajar revised Fatḥ al-bārī in serial iterations over long periods of time in response to his predecessors’ work and that of his rivals. These revisions and additions operated at two levels: to prove the superiority of Ibn Ḥajar’s work amidst a competitive scholarly scene while simultaneously championing hermeneutic norms that Ibn Ḥajar believed best preserved the meaning of the ḥadīth. In sum, these revisions and additions stood to offer the commentator both social and intellectual rewards. To shed light on this process, I will briefly examine and analyze an example from each of the three observable layers of revisions and additions.The first layer, in which the dictation was checked by audition and collation soon after it was first copied, can be seen in the interlinear cancellations and marginal corrections that match the handwriting in the body of the text. Ibn al-Miṣrī, who was known as Shams al-Dīn, signs an audition statement telling us as much:See Fig. 4: balagha Ṣāḥibuhu Shaykh Shams al-Dīn samāʿan wa-muqābalatan min awwal abwāb al-adhān katabahu muʾallifuhu23Figure 4. —The audition statement of Ibn al-Miṣrī, Mahmud Paşa 79, f. 2a: “[The copy’s] owner, Shaykh Shams al-Dīn [a laqab of Ibn al-Miṣrī’s] completed the audition and collation from the beginning of the chapters on the adhān. Signed by its author [Shams al-Dīn].”View Large ImageDownload PowerPointIn this layer, however, we find more than just minor corrections to scribal and dictation errors, although there are plenty of those as well: we sometimes see a reconsideration of Ibn Ḥajar’s interpretation of a ḥadīth, or his predecessors’ understanding of it. Consider, for instance, Ibn Ḥajar’s analysis of a ḥadīth on the “seven [types of believers] that will be shaded” on the day of resurrection. Among those seven types are those who maintain chastity, stating “I fear God,” and those who remind themselves of God through practicing dhikr, repeatedly uttering his name. In the early dictated copy, Ibn Ḥajar quotes a previous commentator, Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Kirmānī (d. 786/1384), who groups these seven types into two broad categories: those who are saved by obedience to God “by the tongue,” and those who are saved by obedience to God “by the body.”24 But al-Kirmānī never fully explained how each of the seven types, including the chaste and the practitioner of dhikr, are distributed into these two categories.Enter Ibn Ḥajar: he first proposes that the type of person al-Kirmānī means by obedience to God “by the tongue” is “the one who says I fear God” (al-qāʾil innī akhāf Allāh) and remains chaste. In the collation, however, Ibn Ḥajar cancels this statement, and substitutes it with the notion that obedience through the tongue means “the one who utters [the name of God repetitively] in remembrance” (al-dhākir) (see Fig. 5).25Figure 5. —Ibn Ḥajar’s student cancels the dictation “the one who says I fear god” (al-qāʾil innī akhāf Allāh, crossed out phrase in the center-left) and replaces it with “the one who utters [the name of God repetitively in remembrance]” (al-dhākir) (right margin) (Süleymaniye Library Istanbul, Mahmud Paşa 79, f. 30a.).View Large ImageDownload PowerPointThese two explanations are so different that they cannot be a scribal error. What, then, can account for the change? While Ibn Ḥajar’s initial solution is technically correct—the chaste person utters “I fear God” with his or her tongue—there is an astute logic behind Ibn Ḥajar’s cancellation and substitution. Indeed, “the one who says I fear God” to maintain their chastity (ʿiffa) fits better in the category of obedience to God “through the body,” whereas al-dhākir seems better placed in the category of obedience to God “through the tongue.” Yet Ibn Ḥajar’s confusion reveals an ambiguity that may arise from al-Kirmānī’s categories themselves. The tongue, after all, acts in the service of the body. Although Ibn Ḥajar could have eschewed al-Kirmānī’s categories altogether, he either could find no better alternative or found them useful enough to keep.While it may be easy to characterize those exegetes who quote past authorities as a signal of repetition or intellectual stagnation, the first layer of revisions from this marked-up early dictated copy of Fatḥ al-bārī clearly indicates the extent to which exegetes sometimes considered and reconsidered the commentary of their predecessors.The Second Layer: Revising for Rivals and Sharḥ al-Ḥadīth bi’l-ḤadīthThe second layer is visible in the hand of an anonymous scholar or scribe who recorded Ibn Ḥajar’s additions (zawāʾid) in the margins almost twenty-eight years after the work was first dictated, eight years after the work was declared “complete” at the khatm, and two years before Ibn Ḥajar passed away. As stated above, these additions were included on the basis of comparing Ibn al-Miṣrī’s early dictated work against a copy belonging to Ibn Ḥajar’s distinguished recitation Burhān al-Dīn ibn Khiḍr in the Although Ibn Khiḍr’s copy the text at a later it was not a final This means that the marginal additions were based on another copy of the text that later must have we not the of the who these additions in the we can out a number of anonymous was years after Ibn al-Miṣrī passed so it could not have been can also out or Ibn Ḥajar handwriting does not that of our although it is is that it was Ibn al-Miṣrī’s a scholar in his own who updated Fatḥ al-bārī after the work from his if this were one might have also Ibn al-Miṣrī’s to have his clear in this second layer is Ibn Ḥajar’s additional to other ḥadīth that he to in the first I will through this layer in more because it the that distinguished Ibn Ḥajar’s as a to a ḥadīth by reference to another ḥadīth one example from the early dictated copy, Ibn Ḥajar a in the of that that it was the third rather than the who an additional call to in the of prior to The practice of an additional call to on which was to have been by the second (d. to have been many of over its and each of the Ibn Ḥajar briefly what he to prove by including this in his Ṣaḥīḥ under the to But he does not the of the the added in the three later, however, we see that Ibn Ḥajar has included an new under the of (see Fig. we find Ibn Ḥajar the of the adhān He three additional one that suggests the practice was by the second a second that that no not even the practice of an additional adhān in and a third that claimed that Ibn the and of an additional In three Ibn Ḥajar offers of the and of each of In the case of the third ḥadīth, he so as to other of Ṣaḥīḥ for even to such an ḥadīth, as he could find no pious who transmitted and its with the meaning of the ḥadīth by of who included ḥadīth of in their The across the and margins in this of a once (Süleymaniye Library Istanbul, Mahmud Paşa 79, f. Large ImageDownload Ibn Ḥajar the he to by process of it must have been his Ibn and al-Dīn who were the only scholars who included these three ḥadīth in their That Ibn and with Ibn Ḥajar’s that it was indeed who an additional adhān is the The clear by the fact that Ibn Ḥajar to this to add of is that his should not have included material just for the of including this we can a about Ibn Ḥajar’s process in this In Ibn al-Miṣrī’s early dictated copy, Ibn Ḥajar any of those three perhaps them for through Norman in the of this as and it as an to “the of a In the later copy, Ibn Ḥajar, after reading his work in which these three were included it was of his to those if only to Ḥajar’s practice of including additional then, was not only a that would prove to a competitive scholarly that his commentary was more than although this was surely a was it a of his and a ḥadīth scholar who of the time and he could to the of although this was also surely a What was most at here for Ibn Ḥajar in his revision was a he to as at the intersection of both social and intellectual if the to which a commentator are to have any or for an their must first be to be Layer: of and Ibn Ḥajar’s final layer of additions of later that can be by comparing this early dictated copy with one based on the exemplar that was after Ibn Ḥajar’s not these later additions were is that they are to the second layer but that the anonymous of the second layer them by This is where minor additions and have been by the anonymous of the second there are and long of commentary that are included in printed editions that are not either in Ibn al-Miṣrī’s version or the version used by the anonymous in In these it is to that our anonymous would have to these while including we from the narrative sources that Ibn Ḥajar to add material the ten years that the work’s “completion” a more is that the additions in the second layer reflect the of Fatḥ al-bārī at the time of the khatm, but not reflect any which Ibn Ḥajar made in the before his in 852/1449. In any we can that our third layer of made to Fatḥ al-bārī after the copy of Burhān al-Dīn ibn Khiḍr used by our anonymous was first to That said, these did not necessarily after (the the second layer was as the anonymous of the second layer may have been Ibn al-Miṣrī’s copy with an already version of Fatḥ example I will in to this layer Ibn Ḥajar’s al-Dīn To that I will first on narrative largely and biographical to the and context in which their competitive The had by the of which happened to be the the in which his own commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ some three years after the initial down of Ibn Ḥajar’s that time, had been appointed to ḥadīth at the complex by Shaykh in Shaykh the of new on the complex that were to the in a of the and of the a after the which an for the and a for the neighborhood and the was for a while the the of Cairo the and the Ibn Ḥajar to in with a of his The of our was and It as it there is more to my than the The final was received as a on name on account of the between the two and clear to the both as an and as the appointed of pious (nāẓir under the In Ibn Ḥajar’s own however, he any such that person who has a of that [the were not for those who that was and we can that would not have Ibn Ḥajar’s about of to in Ibn Ḥajar with an of his own at the of the second The was as a magnificent was by say it was on by the I the the (the In our own by with their own it is not to the for two to a very or from the of a distinguished could great in by made the easy to and to later, the Ibn (d. would the more the in the of the While Ibn or his source this new there is a in which the modified narrative remains to the high of such a in full of the If a scholar like or Ibn Ḥajar could be to the of a by or by it would be for his In several later, Ibn Ḥajar was from an as on the basis that he had to a that several such as with many others documented in the work of that the between and Ibn Ḥajar was driven in by over and symbolic But as evidence from this early dictated manuscript this was not limited to over of and other social The intellectual at in this were just as Ḥajar that some of the who copied early of Fatḥ al-bārī their with in Ibn Ḥajar’s commentary on Ṣaḥīḥ used an early dictated copy of Fatḥ al-bārī as a source to and one to sit on his Ibn Ḥajar composed a written response to in a work example of one of their many intellectual was Ibn Ḥajar’s for used the al-adhān in the on the to there is no ḥadīth by that this In Ibn al-Miṣrī’s early dictated copy of Ibn Ḥajar’s commentary, he this in the way (see Fig. of this is established by a ḥadīth that can be to the Abū Dāwūd and found a corroborating of for it Ibn and others the ḥadīth of Ibn (Süleymaniye Library Istanbul, Mahmud Paşa 79, f. Large ImageDownload PowerPointSee Fig. fī ḥadīth /1/ Abū Dāwūd Ibn min ḥadīth Ibn may seem like a minor of

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