Al-Hidayah

Al-Hidayah fi Sharh Bidayat al-Mubtadi (d. 593 AH/1197 CE) (, al-Hidāyah fī Sharḥ Bidāyat al-Mubtadī), commonly referred to as al-Hidayah (lit. "the guidance", also spelled Hedaya), is a 12th-century legal manual by Burhan al-Din al-Marghinani, which is considered to be one of the most influential compendium of Hanafi jurisprudence (fiqh). It has been subject of numerous commentaries.

==History and significance== The author, Shaykh al-Islam Burhan al-Din al-Farghani al-Marghinani (d.593AH/1197CE), was considered to be one of the most esteemed jurists of the Hanafite school. Al-Hidayah is a concise commentary on al-Marghinani's own compendium al-Bidayat al-mubtadi, which was in turn based on Mukhtasar by al-Quduri and al-Shaybani's al-Jami‘ al-saghir. The significance of al-Hidayah in the Hanafite school lay not in its intrinsic virtues, but in its role as an authoritative and convenient basis for further commentaries. Thus, it constituted not a statement of the law in itself, but rather an interpretative framework for elaboration of jurisprudence in different times and places.