Bidayat al-Mubtadi

Bidayat al-Mubtadi is a Hanafi base text that al-Marghinani wrote first and then commented on in Kifayat al-Muntahi and then in al-Hidaya; al-Hidaya's editor calls it the kernel and summary of al-Hidaya, without the commentary and evidence. ^{1 2}

The editor quotes the opening of its preface: the author used to wish for a law book with a chapter on every kind of question, small in size and rich in content, for the beginner to memorise and the guided to ponder; travelling in Iraq he found the Mukhtasar ascribed to al-Quduri the finest of books, and saw the great scholars of Transoxiana urging young and old to memorise al-Jami' al-Saghir; so he resolved to combine the two and go beyond them only where frequent cases required it, avoiding repetition. ³

The editor notes that he merged the two books into each other with new wording and order, added questions from Muhammad ibn al-Hasan's al-Asl and elsewhere, and included his own preferences. ⁴ He followed the order of al-Jami' al-Saghir, saying he found it the best, so that sales come after marriage, slaves, oaths, hadd penalties and siyar, whereas al-Quduri puts sales after pilgrimage. ⁵ He left out the book of inheritance, though it is in al-Quduri's Mukhtasar, and the editor found no explanation for this. ⁵ He sometimes adds a comment introduced by "he said", in about twelve places; he gives little evidence, with only six hadiths in the book; and he occasionally uses Persian in details, as in the chapter on resale at cost and cost-plus and the book of agency. ⁶

Sa'id Bakdash edited Bidayat al-Mubtadi and printed it in 1437 AH in one large volume; he notes a versification of it by al-Hamili. ^{1 2}