Imom Buxoriy xalqaro ilmiy-tadqiqot markazi bukhari.uz
In 1190/1776, “Hidaya” was translated into Persian by Ghulam Yahyakhan as a manual for the government offices of Bengal which was under the control of Eastern India Company. This translation was published in 1221/1807 in Calcutta. It should be noted that the first publication of “Hidaya” was made neither in Arabic nor in Persian but in English by Charles Hamilton in 1791 in London. Consisting of 4 volumes, this edition was very rare book and in 1870, it was reprinted under the control of S. G. Hany as a whole unit. The last English edition was published in 1982 in Lahore.
“Hidaya” was also translated into Russian from its English version by N. I. Grodekov which was published in Tashkent in 1893.
According to the information collected by a German scholar Ekart Schivak, the most important editions of “Hidaya” are as follows: the original Arabic version of the book was published in 1234/1818 in Calcutta, then in Bombay, Laknahu, Kavnpure, and Delhi. It was published in the 19th century in Cairo and in 1888 in Kazan. Its first critical version was published in Cairo in 1908 and its last new version was also published in Cairo in 1980.
The Russian versions of “Hidaya” were under the threat of disappearing from the scene of the readers and specialists. Therefore, its first volume was prepared for publication in 1994 by Professor Akmal Saidov in a great number of copies. The other volumes are also to be published in near future.
The Uzbek version of “Hidaya” was prepared by a number of specialists under the control of an expert in Oriental sciences Sala-hiddin Muhiddinov. Under the preface of Akmal Saidov it was published in the “Adolat” publishing house in 2000 in Tashkent. The rest of the volumes are also in the process of preparation for publication.
“Hidaya” is serving as a necessary legal source for not only the lawyers in the Islamic world but also for the scholars of the Western schools of law. The important and controversial parts of the book “Law in Islam” published by Majid Hadduri and Herbert J. Lebis in 1958 were taken from “Hidaya”. According to the opinions of the authors, “Hidaya” reveals the main essence of the Hanafian law perfectly well and describes the main stages of its history of development better than the other books in this field. Having read this hook, one can realize that the author had a very good command in the field of law of the Hanafian order of Islam. In most cases, one may feel that the author tried to promote his own ideas and visions ol the legal matters and improve the constructive structure of this science, which was the main purpose of the author.
Doctor Zabihulla Safa states: “”Hidaya” by Burhan ad-din al-Marghinani is of great importance and worth of consequent attention among the lawyers of the Hanafian order, and therefore lots of commentaries have been devoted to this book”.
“Hidaya” has always been in the centre of attention and heated discussions among the lawyers of the Hanafian order and other irpresentatives of the Islamic Shariah. Each specialist cannot help expressing his astonishment and satisfaction with the ideas promoted m the book. The author’s son Sheikh ul-Islam Imam Imad ad-din calls the Muslims to study, learn and follow the ideas promoted in this book. As he stresses, “Hidaya” may open the eyes of the blind in this science and leads the people to the better education in the Islamic world. “Hey, clever man”, says Imam Imad ad-din in his verse, “learn “Hidaya” and thus you may reach the highest levels of knowledge and education in the real world”. Another scholar in the Islamic sciences Al-Haddad wrote on the margins of “Hidaya” the following lines: “As the Holy Qur’an made the other religions meaningless and put them to rout,”Hidaya” also made other books written before it,their teachings and ideas on the Hanafian law worthless and meaningless”.
A well-known scholar Abu-l-Hasanat Muhammad Abdulhay Laknavi who made lots of investigations on “Hidaya” and its scientific essence, introduces the author of “Hidaya” as a man of high energy and a scholar in a wide range of sciences and education. He stresses that “Imam al-Marghinani was a lawyer, a great reader of the Holy Qur’an, an acknowledged expert in Hadiths and tafsirs, a man of great amount of ability in different branches of science, a very attentive investigator and the owner of rare abilities and precious peculiarities of a real man, an acknowledged stylist in law, an incomparable polite man and a poet, and a man of great potential in the fields of religious orders and comparative law”.
Then Laknavi expresses bis impressions on the book “Hidaya”: “I have read the book “Hidaya”, its commentaries and the book “Mukhtaratu-n-navazil”. The works written by al-Marghinani, especially “Hidaya”, are acceptable and reliable because up to the present day they have been in use publicly by specialists in law and learned people as a precious source”.
The above-mentioned ideas and opinions of “Hidaya” and attitudes of the experts towards this original and precious source may serve as a true proof of its high estimation and practical as well as theoretical importance.
The representatives of the Shafi’iya order criticized Imam al-Marghinani for using unimportant Hadiths in his book and such an attitude was estimated by Abdulhay Laknavi as the fact that the criticizers did not penetrate in the deep structural essence of the book. He said, “The criticizers seem not to be aware of Marghinani s abilities and status in the Islamic world”.
Having analyzed the origins and correctness of the ideas of Hadiths provided in “Hidaya”, Sheikh Muhyiddin Abdulqadir (died in 775 A.H.) ibn Muhammad al-Qurashi al-Misri acknowledged the truth and reliability of their origins and called it “Al-Inaya bi-ma’rifati ahadiysi-l-Hidaya”. The correctness and reliability of the origins of the cited Hadiths in “Hidaya” were also proved by Sheikh Alauddin in his book “Al-Kifaya fi ma’rifati ahadiysi-l-Hidaya” and by Sheikh Jamaluddin Abdulla ibn Yusuf Zayla’i in his book “Nasburra’ya li ahadiysi-l-Hidaya”. The latter was called by ibn Hajjar Asqalani in short “Ad-Diraya fi muntakhabi ahadiysi-l-Hidaya”.
