Publisher's Synopsis
Bidayat al-Abid wa Kifayat al-Zahid is a concise manual restricted to the acts of worship based on the jurisprudence of the highly regarded Imam Abu Abdullah Ahmad b. Hanbal. This publication offers the reader what is considered the first rung on the ladder to studying the Hanbali school in a side-by-side dual-language format with both original Arabic text and English translation. Topics include the most common issues pertaining to the rites and rituals of worship i.e. purification, prayer, funeral proceedings, alms-giving, fasting, pilgrimage, and also briefly touches on legal rulings and ethics of military service. Introduction to the Second Edition After an unexpectedly positive reception of the first edition, I felt compelled to undertake a revision of the translation which suffered from numerous typos, grammatical errors, and erroneous conclusions. Besides merely correcting the above-mentioned flaws in the text, I decided to add further value to this edition by including numerous footnotes to define technical Islamic jargon and clarify several extremely codified phrases. For the Arabic student, I have reviewed the original Arabic text for accuracy, comparing it with several primary resources, and added 90-95% of the diacritic marks. For a more ascetically pleasing presentation, I have reformatted the book so that the English translation is on the left side and the Arabic text is on the right. I have also intentionally left ample space for notes at the bottom of most pages.
