al-Mustamlah min Kitab al-Takmila
- Author died
- 748 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī
al-Mustamlah min Kitab al-Takmila (The Selected Essentials from the Book of the Completion) is a biographical dictionary compiled by the Syrian historian and traditionist Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi (673–748 AH / 1274–1348 CE), abridging the biographical work al-Takmila li-Kitab al-Sila by the Andalusian scholar Ibn al-Abbar (d. 658 AH / 1260 CE).
Purpose and Method
Al-Dhahabi abridged Ibn al-Abbar's three-volume biographical dictionary into a single volume primarily for his personal research and to utilize its material in compiling his own encyclopedic works, notably Tarikh al-Islam. In the book's colophon, al-Dhahabi outlined his editorial criteria: he retained the entries of prominent figures and those close to them in prominence, while omitting obscure individuals. He noted that although most Andalusian figures were unfamiliar to Eastern scholars due to geographic distance and the absence of direct chains of transmission, he included them to understand their status and learn about their lives. He also preserved the teachers and narrators by their kunyas as recorded by Ibn al-Abbar, observing that tracing them was demanding.
Rather than producing a passive summary, al-Dhahabi prioritized scholars of hadith transmission (ahl al-riwaya), maintained the voice of the original text, and introduced his own additions, corrections, and marginal glosses—frequently prefacing his comments with the word qultu ("I say") and drawing on additional sources such as Silat al-Sila by Ibn al-Zubayr and the writings of Ibn Fartun.
Structure and Manuscript History
The work is organized alphabetically by given names and concludes with female scholars. The text survives in a single holograph manuscript penned in al-Dhahabi's own handwriting, preserved in the National Library of Algeria (MS 1735), where it was historically cataloged as a fragment of Ibn al-Abbar's original work under the title Majmu' min Kitab al-Takmila li-Kitab al-Sila.
The surviving manuscript consists of 118 folios, with an estimated 27 folios missing from the beginning (roughly one-fifth of the original text), which originally contained the letters alif through tha, most of jim and ha, and several subsequent letters up to the first group of entries named Muhammad. The surviving portion contains 933 numbered biographies, opening with Jabir ibn Muhammad ibn Nam al-Hadrami and ending with the female teacher Sayyida bint Abd al-Ghani al-Abdariyya.
The manuscript appears to have moved after al-Dhahabi's death to Mecca, where the historian Taqi al-Din al-Fasi (d. 832 AH) consulted and quoted from it directly in his biographical work al-'Iqd al-Thamin, indicating that the copy was still intact during his time before it was later acquired and transferred to Algeria.
Reception and Modern Editions
In early modern scholarship, the text was not recognized as an independent abridgment by al-Dhahabi. The Spanish orientalist Francisco Codera appended sections of the Algiers manuscript (entries 1797–2129) to his printed edition of Ibn al-Abbar's al-Takmila, including twenty-three entries added by al-Dhahabi, which Codera treated as variant additions in the Algiers manuscript compared to the El Escorial copy. Subsequent editors repeated this attribution until the manuscript was identified as al-Dhahabi's autograph abridgment.
The work has been published in modern scholarly editions based on the Algiers holograph:
- An edition edited and annotated by Bashar Awwad Ma'ruf, published in 1429 AH / 2008 CE.
- An edition edited by Harun ibn Abd al-Rahman Al Basha al-Jaza'iri, published by 'Alam al-Kutub in Beirut (1429 AH / 2008 CE).
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