Sharh Ma’āni Al-Āthār is a book about the Hadiths of rulings and the evidence of controversial jurisprudence issues. It is arranged on jurisprudence chapters, in which its author, Imam Abu Jaafar al-Tahawi, mentioned the traditions reported from the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, regarding the rulings which may be misinterpreted that some of them invalidate each other. He therefore explained an-Nasikh (the abrogating) and al-mansukh (the abrogated) and distinguished between al-Muqayyad (the restricted) and al-Mutlaq (the absolute), and what ruling should be put into effect, and what should not.

The book Sharh Ma’āni Al-Āthār is one of the reliable sources of the noble prophetic Hadith; it was considered by Al-Hafiz bin Hajar in his book “Itḥāf al-Mahara” as one of the Hadith books that follow the six books in terms of their collection of the most authentic Hadiths. This is due to the benefits related to these Hadiths in their chain of narrators and their narrations, to the clarification of its deductions, to the revelation of seemingly opposing traditions, to its distinction between the abrogating and the abrogated ones, and sayings in Jarh wa Ta’deel that help in accepting and refuting the reports; all set up in good arrangement and classification.

The value of this book was manifested by the interest of scholars, past and present, in their explanation, abridgement and verification, enlightening its methodology and providing a biography of its narrators with an extraction of the appendices of its Hadiths over the six books.