Kitab al-Kaba'ir
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| Author | Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi |
|---|---|
| Original title | كتاب الكبائر |
| Illustrator | |
| Country | Mamluk Sultanate |
| Language | Arabic |
| Subject | Major sins in Islam |
| Genre | Islamic ethics / Hadith studies |
Publication date | 14th century |
Published in English | 1993 |
| Pages |
Kitab al-Kaba'ir (Script error: The function "langx" does not exist., The Book of Major Sins) is a 14th-century classical treatise on Islamic ethics and jurisprudence authored by the Syrian Hadith scholar and historian Al-Dhahabi (d. 1348 CE). The work systematically enumerates, defines, and analyzes the major sins (Al-Kaba'ir) in Islam based on textual evidence from the Quran and the Sunnah.[1]
Textual history and editions
The publishing and textual history of *Kitab al-Kaba'ir* features a significant discrepancy between the popular commercial recension and the verified critical manuscripts.
The Hamza edition (1955)
The book was first edited and printed in modern layout by the scholar Muhammad Abdul-Razzaq Hamza in 1955. Hamza based his edition on three widely circulated manuscripts. However, this popular version contained numerous highly fabricated and weak narrations (wahiyat), which prompted Hamza to include an introductory disclaimer addressing the methodological lapses and unreliable accounts present in the text of that specific recension.[2]
The Masto critical edition (1984)
In 1984, the researcher Muhyi al-Din Masto discovered two independent early manuscripts that fundamentally challenged the textual integrity of the 1955 version. The primary manuscript was copied in 768 AH (1366 CE), less than two decades after Al-Dhahabi's death, from a master copy read directly to the author. The second manuscript was dated 878 AH (1473 CE).
Masto's critical textual analysis demonstrated that the long-standing popular edition was an unverified, spurious expansion containing extensive apocryphal interpolations. Masto published the authentic, shorter recension via Dar Ibn Kathir in 1984, establishing a number of arguments against the authenticity of the popular edition:[3]
- Stylistic divergence: The popular expanded version adopts the narrative style of a popular street preacher gathering unchecked reports indiscriminately (described in classical terms as hatib layl or "one who gathers wood at night"), which directly contradicts Al-Dhahabi's established professional profile as a rigorous, analytical traditionist (Hafiz Naqid).
- Lack of biographical mention: Classical biographical registers of Al-Dhahabi's extensive corpus do not record that he compiled two separate (major and minor) versions of *Al-Kaba'ir*.
- Honorific conventions: The popular expanded edition repeatedly applies the formula *Radiya Allahu 'anhu* (May Allah be pleased with him) to the Tabi'un (Successors). Standard scribal and scholarship conventions observed by Al-Dhahabi restrict this phrase to the Sahaba (Companions), while using *Rahimahullah* (May Allah have mercy on him) for subsequent generations.
- Quantitative variance: The authentic, critically verified manuscript lists exactly 70 major sins and contains 470 hadiths, whereas the unverified popular expanded edition includes up to 76 major sins and 579 hadiths.[3]
Critical reception
The expanded, unauthentic version of *Kitab al-Kaba'ir* had historically attracted criticism from later classical scholars due to its methodological laxity. The 16th-century jurist Ibn Hajar al-Haytami noted that the text attributed to Al-Dhahabi did not meet the expected standards of critical rigor:
I came across a book attributed to the topic of major sins by the Hafiz Abu Abdullah al-Dhahabi. However, it did not satisfy the search for definitive knowledge... This is because he allowed a level of laxity in it that is beneath his high scholarly rank; he included hadiths and folklore without attributing each to its proper source, alongside a lack of deep scrutiny in tracing the statements of the foundational jurists.[4]
This textual corruption stands in contrast to Al-Dhahabi's authentic methodology and critical reputation. His contemporary, the historian Salah al-Din al-Safadi, praised his systematic checking of chains of transmission, writing:
He possesses a jurisprudential analytical mind... I have rarely seen him introduce a prophetic tradition without clarifying the weakness in its text (matn), the obscurity in its chain of transmission (isnad), or the criticism leveled against its narrators.[5]
English translations
The popular, uncritical edition of the text has been translated into English multiple times under titles such as *The Book of Major Sins* or *Major Sins*, including publications by Dar Al-Taqwa (London, 1993) and the Islamic Books Trust (Kuala Lumpur, 1999).
See also
References
- ↑ Mohammad Ben Cheneb (1965). "al-Dhahabī". Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition. 2. Brill. pp. 214–216. doi:10.1163/1573-3912_islam_SIM_1834.
- ↑ G.H.A. Juynboll (1969). The Authenticity of the Tradition Literature: Discussions in Modern Egypt. Brill. pp. 34–38. ISBN 978-9004020740. Search this book on
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Al-Dhahabi, Al-Kaba'ir. Edited by Muhyi al-Din Masto. 2nd ed. Damascus: Dar Ibn Kathir, 1405 AH [1984]. pp. 5–17.
- ↑ Ibn Hajar al-Haytami, Al-Zawajir 'an Iqtiraf al-Kaba'ir, Dar al-Fikr, Beirut, Vol. 1, p. 4.
- ↑ Salah al-Din al-Safadi, Al-Wafi bil-Wafayat, edited by Ahmad al-Arna'ut, Dar Ihya al-Turath, Beirut, Vol. 2, p. 115.
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