The Legacy of a Literary Man in Islamic Legal Theory: Surūrī Chalabī’s Criticisms in his Super- Commentary on al-Talwīḥ and His Arguments

Abstract

Al-Taftāzānī (d. 792/1390), a well-known theorist/theologian of the post-classical era of Islamic thought, not only elucidated the statements of Ṣadr al-sharīʿah in his ḥāshiyah (super-commentary), titled al-Talwīḥ, which he wrote on al-Tawḍīḥ, but also introduced several criticisms against his arguments. Al-Taftāzānī’s work, al- Talwīḥ, was received with great interest by Ottoman scholars, who then composed many ḥāshiyahs on it in the fifteenth century. Although the number of ḥāshiyahs significantly diminished, the practice of ḥāshiyah writing on al-Talwīḥ continued in the sixteenth century. Surūrī Chalabī (d. 969/1562) was one of the scholars who penned a ḥāshiyah on al-Talwīḥ during this period. The literary works of Surūrī Chalabī have recently been the subject of numerous academic studies, yet his legacy in Islamic sciences has not received the same interest. This article, aiming to fill this gap in the literature,scrutinizes synchronically and diachronically the place of Surūrī’s Ḥāshiyah on al-Talwīḥ within the tradition of Ottoman ḥāshiyah writing on al-Talwīḥ and eventually demonstrates that Surūrī primarily dealt with the arguments and comments of Ḥasan Chalabī, a previous ḥāshiyah author who commented on al-Talwīḥ and criticized them in his argument-based ḥāshiyah thus endeavors to position himself within the tradition of ḥāshiyah writing of the previous century through Ḥasan Chalabī’s work.