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Figure 3: On the right is a ḥāshiya on a plague invocation, instructing the reader to inscribe specific letters on the cover of his copy to miraculously enhance his knowledge—based on the occult science of letterism. On the left is a marginal note providing a date for a passage on dream interpretation. Aḥmad Pāshā, no. 350, folios 64–65.
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Much Ado About a Footnote?

The Development and Function of the Ḥāshiya in the Islamic Intellectual Tradition

BY MUNTASIR ZAMAN

References

1
ʿAbd al-Ṣabūr Marzūq, “Preface,” in Rashīd Riḍā, al-Waḥy al-Muḥammadī (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2005), 4.
2
On the paratextual components of an Arabic manuscript, see Adam Gacek, Arabic Manuscripts A Vademecum for Readers (Brill, 2009).
3
There are nuances and regional variations in the usage of these terms. For instance, a hāmish is described as a loan word, foreign to Arabic (muwallad). See Raḍī al-Dīn al-Saghānī, al-Takmila wa-l-dhayl wa-l-ṣila (Maṭbaʿāt Dār al-Kutub, 1979), 3:527.
4
Murtaḍā al-Zabīdī, Tāj al-ʿarūs min jawāhir al-Qāmūs (Al-Majlis al-Waṭanī li-l-Thaqāfa wa-l-Funūn wa-l-Ādāb, 2001), 37:436.
5
Sunan al-Nasāʾī (Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 2001), 1:410, no. 836.
6
On the definitions of marginal commentaries, glosses, and scholia, see Stephanie Brinkmann, “Marginal Commentaries in Ḥadīth Manuscripts,” Zeitsprünge 24, no. 1 (2020): 14–19.
7
Brinkmann, “Marginal Commentaries in Ḥadīth Manuscripts,” 34.
8
Robert Wisnovsky, “The Nature and Scope of Arabic Philosophical Commentary in post-Classical (ca. 1100–1900 AD) Islamic Intellectual History: Some Preliminary Observations,” Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies 47, no. 83 (2004): 160.
9
ʿAbd Allāh Muḥammad al-Ḥabshī, Jāmiʿ al-shurūḥ wa-l-ḥawāshī (Dār al-Minhāj, 2018), 5:530–589.
10
On the Sahāranpūrī muṣḥaf project, see Muntasir Zaman, qalamresearch.com (accessed April 14, 2025).
11
See, for instance, corpuscoranicum.de (accessed April 14, 2025).
12
Marijn van Putten, “Textual Criticism of the Quran,” in The Comparative Textual Criticism of Religious Scriptures, ed. Karin Finsterbusch, Russell Fuller, Armin Lange, and Jason Driesbach (Brill, 2024), 155.
13
On the debates surrounding the exclusion of extra-Quraʾnic material from the muṣḥaf, see Musāʿid al-Ṭayyār, al-Muḥarrar fī ʿulūm al-Qurʾān (Markaz al-Dirāsāt wa-l-Maʿlūmāt al-Qurʾāniyya, 2008), 229–234.
14
See, for instance, Ibn al-Naḥḥās, Mukhtaṣar mashāriʿ al-ashwāq fol. 12r. Sulaymāniyya no. 555; Muntakhabāt li-Shams al-Maʿārif li-l-Būnī, fol. 49r. Aḥmad Pāshā no. 350.
15
See, for instance, Ibn Manẓūr, Lisān al-ʿArab (Dār Ṣādir, 1414 AH), 12:192.
16
Samuel J. Ross, “What Were the Most Popular tafsīrs in Islamic History? Part 1: An Assessment of the Manuscript Record and the State of tafsīr Studies,” Journal of Qur’anic Studies 25 no. 3 (2024): 6.
17
See Walid Saleh, “Periodization in the Sunni Qur’an Commentary Tradition: A Chronological History of a Genre,” in Practices of Commentary: Medieval Traditions and Transmissions, ed. Amanda Goodman and Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Amsterdam University Press, 2023), 58–60.
18
Joel Blecher, Said the Prophet of God: Hadith Commentary Across a Millennium (University of California Press, 2018), chapter 8.
19
Muntasir Zaman, “Hidden in the Margins: Contesting Legal Authority in Marginal Hadith Glosses,” Islamic Law and Society (published online ahead of print 2025).
20
Ahmed El Shamsy, “The Ḥāshiya in Islamic Law: A Sketch of the Shāfiʿī Literature,” Oriens 41:3–4 (2013): 289–315.
21
Samy Ayoub, “Creativity in Continuity: Legal Treatises (al-rasāʾil al-fiqhiyya) in Islamic law,” Journal of Islamic Studies 34:3 (2023): 307, 315–17. Ibn ʿĀbidīn labels Radd al-muḥtār and Minḥat al-khāliq as ḥāshiyas despite their uncharacteristic length compared to other ḥāshiyas. See Ibn ʿĀbidīn, al-ʿUqūd al-dariyya fī tanqīḥ al-Fatāwā al-Ḥāmidiyya (Dār al-Maʿrifah, n.d.), 1:2.
22
Asad Q. Ahmed, “Post-Classical Philosophical Commentaries/Glosses: Innovation in the Margins,” Oriens 41 (2013): 317–348.
23
Khaled El-Rouayheb, Islamic Intellectual History in the Seventeenth Century: Scholarly Currents in the Ottoman Empire and the Maghreb (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 29–34.
24
Ḥājjī Khalīfa, Kashf al-ẓunūn (Maktabat al-Muthannā, 1941), 2:1372.
25
Ahmed, “Post-Classical Philosophical Commentaries,” 346.
26
See, for instance, Ross, “What Were the Most Popular tafsīrs in Islamic History?,” 31.
27
Muḥammad Dhīshān, “Ḥaẓrat ʿAllāma Anwar Shāh Kashmīrī awr ḥashiya Āthār al-Sunan,” Māh Nāmah-yi Dār al-ʿUlūm 101 no. 10 (2017), 2-10.
28
Muḥammad Āl Rashīd reproduced al-Kawtharī’s scattered marginal glosses on Fihris al-fahāris (roughly ten glosses in total) in al-Imām Zāhid al-Kawtharī wa-ishāmātuhu fī ʿilm al-riwāya wa-l-isnād (Dār al-Fatḥ, 2009), 74–84.
29
Shihāb al-Dīn al-Būṣīrī, Itḥāf al-khiyara al-mahara (Maktabat al-Rushd, 1997), 10:531–532.
30
Al-Būṣīrī, Itḥāf al-khiyara al-mahara (Dār al-Waṭan, 1999), 5:80, note 5.
31
Ṣāliḥ al-Azharī, al-Taqyīdāt al-shahiyya min ẓuhūr wa-ghawāshī wa-ḥawāshī al-nusakh al-khattīyya (Dār al-Bashāʾir al-Islāmiyya, 2016).
32
Zaman, “Hidden in the Margins,” 11–27.
33
See, for instance, Shihāb al-Dīn al-Shilbī, Ḥāshiyat al-Shilbī ʿalā Tabyīn al-ḥaqāʾiq (Būlāq, 1314 AH), 4:47, 70, 71, 79, 239, 278.
34
To be sure, books in the premodern Islamic tradition also underwent multiple stages of drafting and refinement, commonly distinguished as a musawwada (rough draft) and a mubayyāḍa (final copy).
35
“Scientific Peer Review Is Broken. We're Fighting to Fix it with Anonymity,” Wired, December 10, 2014, wired.com (accessed April 26, 2025).
36
See Ahmed El Shamsy, Rediscovering the Islamic Classics (Princeton University Press, 2020), chapter 2.
37
Sinéad O'Sullivan, “Text, Gloss, and Tradition in the Early Medieval West: Expanding into a World of Learning,” Journal of Medieval Latin 11 (2017), 3–24.
⬩About the Author⬩

Muntasir Zaman is a faculty member at the Qalam Seminary where he teaches Fiqh and Hadith studies.

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