al-Amali al-Mutlaqa

al-Amali al-Mutlaqa (الأمالي المطلقة, "The Unrestricted Dictations") is a hadith work by the Shafi'i hadith scholar and judge Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (773–852 AH / 1372–1449 CE), comprising a compilation of hadith dictation sessions spanning diverse subjects Nuzhat al-Nazar fi Tawdih…+1.

Context and Method

The practice of hadith dictation (imla'), regarded by hadith masters as one of the highest forms of hadith transmission and instruction, was revived in the later Islamic period by Ibn Hajar alongside his teacher Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi al-Yawaqit wa al-Durar Sh…. Over his career, Ibn Hajar dictated more than one thousand hadith sessions al-Risala al-Mustatrafa l…. While several of his dictation collections were bound to specific texts—such as his dictations on al-Nawawi's al-Adhkar and Ibn al-Hajib's Mukhtasar—or restricted to particular journeys, such as al-Amali al-Halabiyya in Aleppo, al-Amali al-Mutlaqa consists of free-form, unrestricted sessions not confined to a single source text al-Risala al-Mustatrafa l…+1.

In each session, Ibn Hajar cites hadiths through his own chains of transmission reaching earlier hadith compilers and collections, followed by an exhaustive critical examination of the transmission lines al-Ima ila Zawaid al-Amal…+1. His analysis includes evaluating narrator reliability (ta'dil and tajrih), identifying corroborating pathways and isolated narrators (tafarrud), clarifying discrepancies in chains, addressing hidden defects ('ilal), and concluding with an explicit assessment of the hadith's authenticity (such as sahih, hasan, or gharib) al-Ima ila Zawaid al-Amal…+1.

Editions

The work was edited by Hamdi Abd al-Majid al-Salafi and published in a single volume by al-Maktab al-Islami in Beirut (1416 AH / 1995 CE) al-Ima ila Atraf Ahadith …+1.