While it is the crown jewel of the Hanafi school, Al Hidayah is respected by all Sunni schools because it often cites the opposing views of Imam Abu Hanifah's disciples (Abu Yusuf and Muhammad al-Shaybani) and occasionally the opinions of Imam Shafi’i. This makes it a manual of comparative Fiqh, not just a tribal text.
In the Indian subcontinent, Al-Hidayah is often studied alongside Fath al-Qadir (a commentary by Ibn al-Humam). PDFs of the Urdu translation are widely available.
To understand the book, you must first understand the man. (1117–1197 CE / 511–593 AH) was born in the city of Marghinan (present-day Margilan, Uzbekistan), a region famous for producing giants of Hanafi jurisprudence.
Shaykh al-Islam Burhan al-Din al-Farghani al-Marghinani (d. 593 AH / 1197 CE) was an esteemed jurist from present-day Uzbekistan. He wrote as a commentary on his own earlier compendium, Bidayat al-Mubtadi , which synthesized two major works: Mukhtasar by al-Quduri and al-Jami' al-Saghir by al-Shaybani. Structure and Content