al-Ahadith al-Arbaun al-Mutabayyina al-Asanid wal-Mutun
- Author died
- 842 AH
- Editions
- Manuscript published in the free program Jawāmiʿ al-Kalim affiliated with Islamweb
al-Ahadith al-Arbaun al-Mutabayyina al-Asanid wal-Mutun (The Forty Hadiths of Distinct Chains and Texts) is a specialized hadith collection compiled by the Damascene traditionist Ibn Nasir al-Din al-Dimashqi (777–842 AH / 1375–1438 CE) . The work belongs to the arba'iniyyat (forty-hadith) genre, bringing together forty traditions extracted directly from the author's own chains of transmission with mutually distinct isnads and textual contents .
Background and Methodology
In the introduction to the collection, Ibn Nasir al-Din emphasizes prophetic traditions as the principal foundation of religious knowledge after the Qur'an . He contextualizes the compilation within the tradition of preserving forty hadiths, citing multiple transmission routes of the report: من حفظ على أمتي أربعين حديثًا ("Whoever preserves for my community forty hadiths..."), recorded on the authority of Companions such as Mu'adh ibn Jabal, Abd Allah ibn Abbas, Abu Hurayrah, and Anas ibn Malik .
While recording these preliminary routes, Ibn Nasir al-Din assesses the integrity of individual narrators, identifying flawed transmitters such as al-Hasan ibn Qutaybah al-Mada'ini as abandoned (matruk) and Ya'qub ibn Ishaq al-Asqalani as accused of fabrication . He notes earlier scholarly variations in forty-hadith compositions, observing that while some compilers focused on multi-route hadiths, acts of worship, or asceticism and scrupulousness—such as Ahmad ibn Harb—his own criterion required selecting distinct chains and texts directly from his audited transmissions .
Structure and Content
The work opens with the famous intention hadith, إنما الأعمال بالنيات ("Actions are judged only by intentions"), narrated on the authority of Umar ibn al-Khattab, tracing its multiple transmission pathways through Yahya ibn Sa'id and analyzing its narration in al-Bukhari's Sahih and Abu Bakr al-Isma'ili's Mustakhraj .
For the core forty hadiths, Ibn Nasir al-Din arranges the entries according to the transmitting Companions, beginning with the Ten Promised Paradise (al-Asharah al-Mubashsharah) . Each section opens with biographical information on the Companion—including lineage, physical description, and date of death—before presenting the author's specific chain of narration and the tradition itself, starting with Abu Bakr al-Siddiq .
Manuscript Preservation
A historical manuscript copy of the text is preserved in the Berlin State Library under catalog entry number 1509 .
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