almukhtasar

alMukhtasar is an Arabic bibliographic term meaning "the concise work" or "epitome." It is used as the title of abridged treatises across Islamic sciences and Arabic literature to indicate that the author has distilled a larger body of work into a shorter, more accessible form. The term comes from the Arabic root meaning "to shorten" and the definite article, yielding the sense of "the abridged."

In Islamic jurisprudence, several celebrated manuals bear this title, reflecting a common genre of abridgment. The best-known Hanafi example is al-Mukhtasar fi Fiqh al-Imam Abu Hanifa, commonly known as Mukhtasar al-Quduri, attributed to Abu Bakr al-Quduri. In Maliki tradition, the widely studied manual Mukhtasar Khalil serves as a compact survey of Maliki law, attributed to Khalil ibn Ishaq al-Jundi. Similar abridgments exist in other schools and subjects, including hadith, history, and grammar, each presenting a structured summary intended for study and teaching.

The use of "al-Mukhtasar" as a title underscores the scholarly practice of composing concise reference works that could be used by students as an introduction before tackling more exhaustive sources. In modern libraries, works with this designation are categorized by author and discipline to distinguish them from longer compendia.

Because "al-Mukhtasar" is a generic designation rather than a single work, precise identification requires the author's name and the field of study.