al-Muntakhab min Dhayl al-Mudhayyal

al-Muntakhab min Dhayl al-Mudhayyal (Selections from the Supplement to the Supplement) is an abridgment of the biographical dictionary Dhayl al-Mudhayyal by the historian and polymath Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari (224–310 AH / 839–923 CE), compiled to record the biographies of the Companions, the Successors, and subsequent generations of Muslim scholars Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T…+1.

Background and Parent Work

The original source work, Dhayl al-Mudhayyal, was dictated by al-Tabari after 300 AH as an extensive biographical supplement to his major historical work, spanning approximately one thousand folios—roughly one-third the size of his chronicle Tarikh al-Umam wa-l-Muluk Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T…+1. Yaqut al-Hamawi lauded it as one of the finest and most desirable works for students of hadith and historians, while Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi referred to it as Tarikh al-Rijal (History of Men/Transmitters) Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T….

The complete original text of al-Tabari's Dhayl al-Mudhayyal is lost, and no full manuscript of it has been recovered Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T…. The surviving material is preserved through the abridgment titled al-Muntakhab min Dhayl al-Mudhayyal min Tarikh al-Sahaba wa-l-Tabi‘in, produced by the Andalusian scholar and scribe ‘Arib ibn Sa‘d al-Qurtubi (d. c. 370 AH / 980 CE), who also wrote an abridgment and a continuation (Silat Tarikh al-Tabari) of al-Tabari's chronicle Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T….

Content and Structure

The book is organized as a biographical survey covering the Companions, the Successors (Tabi'un), the Followers of the Successors (Atba' al-Tabi'in), and later scholars down to al-Tabari's direct teachers Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T…+1:

• The Companions: It records those who died or were killed during the lifetime of the Prophet ﷺ, followed by those who survived him and transmitted from him, organized according to degree of kinship to the Prophet ﷺ and tribal affiliations within Quraysh and other Arab tribes Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T….
• Female Companions: A dedicated treatment is given to women who accepted Islam in the prophetic era, opening with those who died before the Hijrah—such as Khadijah bint Khuwaylid—and continuing with those who died afterward al-Muntakhab min Dhayl al…+1.
• Biographical and Hadith Criticism: The text notes transmitters' biographical reports, doctrinal orientations, and evaluations of weak hadith narrators, while actively defending notable figures against unwarranted doctrinal accusations, including al-Hasan al-Basri, Qatada ibn Di'ama, and ‘Ikrima Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T….
• Specialized Hadith Categories: The concluding sections of the work contained chapters on siblings who narrated from one another, fathers transmitting alongside their sons, and transmitters known by their agnomens (kunyas) rather than their personal names, or vice versa Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T….

Publication History

al-Muntakhab min Dhayl al-Mudhayyal was first edited and published by Michael Jan de Goeje in Leiden between 1897 and 1901 as part of the concluding volume of al-Tabari's historical corpus Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T…+1. It was subsequently included in multiple Arabic printings of al-Tabari's chronicle, including the al-Husayniyya edition in Cairo (1326 AH), the Matba‘at al-Istiqama edition (Cairo, 1358 AH / 1939 CE, occupying 164 pages at the end of the eighth volume), and the edition edited by Muhammad Abu al-Fadl Ibrahim for Dar al-Ma‘arif (Cairo, 1960–1967), where it appears in the eleventh volume alongside other historical supplements Sahih wa Daif Tarikh al-T…+1. It has also been printed independently, such as by Mu’assasat al-A‘lami in Beirut al-Muntakhab min Dhayl al…+1.