al-Mawsua al-Hadithiyya al-Shamila Bayn al-Waqi wa al-Mamul
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al-Mawsu‘a al-Hadithiyya al-Shamila Bayn al-Waqi‘ wa al-Ma’mul: Dirasa Tatbiqiyya ‘ala Mawsu‘at al-Hadith al-Nabawi ("The Comprehensive Hadith Encyclopedia Between Reality and Aspiration: An Applied Study on the Encyclopedia of Prophetic Hadith") is a methodological study and project blueprint written by Dr. Abd al-Malik ibn Bakr Qadi outlining a comprehensive framework for cataloging, verifying, and publishing the Prophetic Sunnah .
Background and Genesis
The author traced his inspiration for an exhaustive hadith reference to his undergraduate studies at the College of Sharia and Islamic Studies in Mecca in 1389 AH, where he perceived a widespread need among Muslims for a unified compendium covering their religion . During his master's coursework in Mecca in 1395 AH on transmitter criticism (naqd al-rijal), his instructor, Dr. Muhammad Amin al-Misri (d. 1397 AH), frequently emphasized the necessity of standardizing the varied terminology of impugnment and validation (al-jarh wa-l-ta‘dil) . His master's research on the narrations of Shu'ba ibn al-Hajjaj in the Six Books served as an initial step toward the project .
Upon moving to King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals in Dhahran in Muharram 1399 AH, the author developed his research into collating the hadith endpoints (atraf) of Sahih al-Bukhari and diagramming transmission trees (asānīd) . During his doctoral studies (1400–1403 AH) under Dr. Musa Shahin Lashin at al-Azhar University in Cairo, he contributed to al-Azhar’s hadith encyclopedia project through his dissertation on the second part of Sunan Abi Dawud . He then launched preliminary pilot publications on acts of worship, beginning with Ahadith al-Zakat drawn from sixteen sources and Ahadith al-Siyam drawn from seventy-six sources, which he distributed to four hundred scholars across the Islamic world for evaluation . He subsequently produced preliminary volumes covering ritual purity, zakat, pilgrimage, sacrificial animals, the Two Holy Mosques, al-Aqsa Mosque, Friday prayer, marriage, divorce, and post-marital waiting periods, extracted from six hundred hadith works .
Purpose and Scope
The book argues that compiling an exhaustive encyclopedia of the Sunnah had become an urgent necessity in response to contemporary challenges, including internet and media campaigns casting doubt on the authority (hujjiyya) of the Sunnah, the unverified citation of weak or abridged hadiths by lecturers and preachers, and societal discord arising from conflicting legal interpretations based on partial hadith knowledge . The author notes that exhaustive collation aligns with the classical methods of earlier hadith authorities—such as Yahya ibn Ma'in, Ali ibn al-Madini, Ibrahim ibn Sa'id al-Jawhari, Abu Hatim al-Razi, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, and Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti—who emphasized that errors and underlying defects cannot be uncovered without gathering all transmission routes of a narration .
Structure and Four Project Tracks
To address the diverse needs of different audiences, the author designed the project around four distinct publication tracks:
- Diwan al-Sunan wa-l-Athar (intended for hadith specialists): Planned in over 550 volumes, this track aims to encompass every recorded statement, action, tacit approval, biographical description, or pre- and post-prophetic report attributed to the Prophet ﷺ, as well as narrations from Companions and Successors, drawn comprehensively from primary printed hadith collections with full chains, parallel versions, variant wordings, and original author commentaries .
- Mawsu‘at al-Hadith al-Nabawi (intended for researchers): Planned in forty volumes, this work is derived from the Diwan by selecting representative texts (matn) that best encompass the meaning, prioritizing the wordings of Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, and Malik ibn Anas's al-Muwatta', followed by full lists of transmission routes (turuq) arranged chronologically by the death dates of compilers . Narrations confined strictly to biographical works on weak transmitters or works of fabrications—such as Ibn Adi's al-Kamil, the Nuskha of Nubayt ibn Sharit, the Musnad attributed to Zayd ibn Ali, Ibn Wad'an's al-Arba'un al-Wad'aniyya, Abu al-Shaykh's al-'Azama, and Ibn al-Jawzi's Fada'il al-Quds—are excluded as standalone texts and cited only in the transmission cross-references .
- Mudawwanat Ahadith al-Ahkam (intended for jurists): Planned in twenty volumes, this track extracts legal texts (both acceptable and rejected) from the encyclopedia, prioritizing narrations attested by two or more Companions, and references each text back to its entry in the Mawsu‘a .
- Ma‘lamat al-Hady al-Nabawi (intended for general Muslim readers): Planned in nine volumes, this work gathers only acceptable narrations (sahih, hasan, and corroborating mursal reports) stripped of chains of transmission, accompanied by explanatory notes, answers to doubts, legal rulings, and definitions of obscure vocabulary (gharib) .
Thematic Organization
Across all four tracks, the material is arranged topically according to twenty primary sections (aqsam) :
- Faith (al-Iman)
- Acts of Worship (al-‘Ibadat)
- Family (al-Usra)
- Financial Transactions (al-Mu‘amalat)
- Society (al-Mujtama‘)
- Ethics (al-Akhlaq)
- Upbringing and Education (al-Tarbiyya)
- The Quran (al-Qur'an)
- The Prophet's Biography (al-Sira)
- Military Expeditions (al-Maghazi)
- Delegations (al-Wufud)
- Virtues (al-Fada'il)
- Food (al-Ghidha')
- Clothing (al-Libas)
- Medicine (al-Tibb)
- Oaths and Vows (al-Ayman wa-l-Nudhur)
- Punishments (al-‘Uqubat)
- Tribulations and Portents of the Hour (al-Fitan wa-Ashrat al-Sa‘a)
- Jihad (al-Jihad)
- General Compendium (al-Jami‘)
Each section is further subdivided into books (kutub) and chapters (abwab), with narrations listed under each chapter according to the seniority of compiler death dates .
Editorial Standards and Execution Methodology
The work establishes detailed criteria for processing textual materials, evaluating manuscripts, and managing research teams. It outlines procedures for gathering primary manuscript copies from international libraries, prioritizing autograph manuscripts or those read in scholarly auditions, and avoiding reliance on commercial editions with silent omissions or altered titles .
The project outlines defined responsibilities for text authenticators (muwaththiqu al-nass), critical editors (muhaqqiqu al-nass), typesetters, card classifiers, research scholars, experienced hadith specialists, and an oversight scholarly committee . In addition, the book highlights two prerequisite research studies: developing a numerical scale mapping the diverse expressions of transmitter criticism into standardized evaluation tiers, and standardizing the terminology of hadith nomenclature (‘ilm al-mustalah) to facilitate computational applications in hadith studies .
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