al-Awali al-Muwafaqat - Ismail al-Asbahani
- Author died
- 535 AH
- Editions
- Manuscript published in the free Jawāmiʿ al-Kalim software affiliated with the Islamweb website
al-Awali al-Muwafaqat (Arabic: العوالي الموافقات, The Elevated Concordant Narrations) is a hadith treatise by the Sunni traditionist Ismail al-Taymi al-Asbahani (d. 535 AH / 1141 CE) compiling elevated chains of transmission that connect to the teachers of al-Bukhari and Muslim.
Content and Method
In the opening of the work, al-Asbahani explains that he assembled the narrations in which he possessed high chains of transmission (isnad 'ali) corresponding to the shaykhs of al-Bukhari and Muslim. In the terminology of hadith scholars, this genre of transmission is designated as al-muwafaqat al-'awali (elevated concordances).
Al-Asbahani arranged the biographical entries and narrations alphabetically according to the Arabic letters of the teachers' names (huruf al-mu'jam). He began the work under the letter alif with narrators named Ahmad, seeking blessing in the name of the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. The first entry is devoted to Ahmad ibn Abd al-Rahman ibn Wahb al-Qurashi Abu Ubayd Allah (d. 264 AH), the nephew of Abd Allah ibn Wahb. Al-Asbahani stated his intention for the collection to encompass one hundred hadiths, so that it might be called al-Mi'ah al-Muwafaqat al-Awali ("The Hundred Elevated Concordant Traditions").
Transmission and Manuscripts
The extant text was transmitted on the authority of al-Asbahani through an authorization (ijazah) granted to Abu al-Makarim As'ad ibn Muhammad ibn Mukhtar al-Khayyat al-Muqri'. It was subsequently transmitted from al-Muqri' by Abu al-Tahir Ismail ibn Zafar ibn Ahmad al-Nabulusi, who read the text upon him in Isfahan.
A manuscript of al-Awali al-Muwafaqat, missing its final portion, is preserved in the al-Zahiriyya Library (al-Asad National Library) in Damascus under shelfmark no. 3841 (Majmu' 105). A photographic copy of this manuscript is held at the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies (no. 66657).
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