Badhl al-Majhūd fī Ḥall Sunan Abī Dāwūd by Shaykh Khalīl Aḥmad al-Sahāranfūrī: A Ḥadīth Study

Sunan Abī Dāwūd, compiled by Imām Abū Dāwūd Sulaymān b. al-Ashʿath al-Sijistānī, is one of the principal collections of aḥādīth al-aḥkām and ranks among the most authoritative works of ḥadīth after the two Ṣaḥīḥs of al-Bukhārī and Muslim. Among its major later commentaries is Badhl al-Majhūd fī Ḥall Sunan Abī Dāwūd by Shaykh Khalīl Aḥmad al-Sahāranfūrī. This article examines the commentary from a ḥadīth perspective and identifies its principal methodological features and scholarly contribution. It employs descriptive and analytical methods: the descriptive component presents a concise account of the author’s intellectual formation and scholarly works, while the analytical component examines representative passages from the commentary. The study finds that al-Sahāranfūrī combines riwāyah and dirāyah; evaluates transmitters through jarḥ wa-taʿdīl; vocalises and identifies narrators’ names; discusses ḥadīth terminology; explains difficult vocabulary; analyses the matn; compares variant wordings and chains of transmission; and critically examines Abū Dāwūd’s judgments. It also demonstrates that he presents juristic positions together with their evidence, accords particular attention to the Ḥanafī school, corrects errors in earlier commentaries and circulating copies, and draws extensively on the observations of his teachers. A brief comparison with ʿAwn al-Maʿbūd further clarifies the distinctive juristic and madhhab-oriented character of Badhl al-Majhūd alongside its substantial engagement with ḥadīth criticism. The commentary brings together material dispersed across ḥadīth, rijāl, linguistic, and legal sources and contains several independent investigations not found in other commentaries. The study concludes that Badhl al-Majhūd is a major later commentary on Sunan Abī Dāwūd because of its integrated ḥadīth, juristic, linguistic, and textual analysis, although it remains insufficiently known outside the Indian subcontinent.

Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Badhl al-Majhūd, Khalīl Aḥmad al-Sahāranfūrī

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