He wove it as a fabric, and imitated the like of its style. Thus, the efforts of scholars were confined to attending to it through commentary, annotation, critical editing, textual correction, abridgment, extraction, and the documentation of its chain-backed hadiths and the hadiths of the chapter to which the author, may God have mercy on him, alluded by indication.

Among the most important of its commentaries are:

1. The commentary of the judge Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abdullah ibn Ahmad, known as Ibn al-Arabi al-Ma'afiri al-Andalusi al-Ishbili, the memorizer of hadith, who died in the year (543 AH). He named it "Aridat al-Ahwadhi," and it is among the most famous commentaries on al-Tirmidhi. The memorizer Ibn Hajar and other eminent scholars quoted from it in their works useful statements and abundant benefits. It was printed in thirteen parts across seven volumes in a poor edition in which textual corruption and distortion are widespread.

2. The commentary of the memorizer Abu al-Fath Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad Ibn Sayyid al-Nas al-Ya'mari, who died in the year (734 AH). He named it "al-Nafh al-Shadhi," but he did not complete it, for death overtook him before its completion. His commentary reached the eighth hadith of the chapter on the statement that the entire earth is a mosque except for the cemetery and the bathhouse. Imam al-Shawkani examined Ibn Sayyid al-Nas's commentary in his own handwriting and said: "It is delightful in everything he discussed, whether in the discipline of hadith or otherwise, while he committed himself to citing the hadiths to which he alluded by saying: 'And in this chapter, from so-and-so and so-and-so.'" He undertook the critical editing of this...