al-Arbaun Hadithan min al-Musawah
- Author died
- 571 AH
- Editions
- Abu 'Ali Taha Bu Sarih
al-Arbaʿun Hadithan min al-Musawah (The Forty Hadiths of Equal Transmission) is a hadith collection compiled by the Syrian Shafiʿi hadith master Abu al-Qasim Ibn Asakir (499–571 AH / 1105–1176 CE) . It is also titled al-Arbaʿun Hadithan min al-Musawah al-Mustakhrajah ʿan Thiqat al-Ruwat min Hadith Muhammad ibn al-Fadl al-Saʿidi al-Furawi .
Purpose and Contents
The work was compiled (takhrīj) by Ibn Asakir for his teacher, the jurist and traditionist Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Fadl al-Furawi (d. 530 AH) . Its selection is drawn specifically from the narrations transmitted by al-Furawi in which his chains of transmission match (sawā) in brevity and number of intermediaries to the source the chains of one of the Six Imams of Hadith (al-Aʾimmah al-Sittah), thereby achieving musāwāh (equal elevation) in the isnad .
The 8th-century scholar Salah al-Din al-Ala'i characterized it as a fine and beneficial book, noting that despite its title suggesting a group of forty, it contains over one hundred hadiths alongside extensive commentary and analysis provided by Ibn Asakir .
Transmission
The book was preserved and transmitted through several authoritative chains in the Levant and beyond. Salah al-Din al-Ala'i received it through hearing and reading from Abu Muhammad al-Qasim ibn Muzaffar ibn Asakir, who attended its reading before Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Barakat ibn al-Khushuʿi and Abu Muhammad Abd al-Aziz ibn Muhammad al-Salihi, both of whom related it directly from the compiler Ibn Asakir from al-Furawi . It was also documented by Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Rudani through a line of transmission reaching back to Fatima bint Muhammad ibn Abd al-Hadi, from al-Hasan ibn Umar al-Kurdi, from Abu al-Munajja ibn al-Latti, from Ibn Asakir .
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