al-Rabi min al-Khulaiyat
- Author died
- 492 AH
- Editions
- Manuscript published in the free Jawami' al-Kalim program affiliated with Islamweb
al-Rabi‘ min al-Khula‘iyyat (The Fourth Part of al-Khala‘iyyat), formally titled al-Juz’ al-Rabi‘ min al-Fawa’id al-muntaqah al-hisan min al-sihah wa-l-ghara’ib (The Fourth Part of Selected Fine Traditions from Authentic and Solitary Hadiths), is a hadith tract transmitted from the Egyptian Shafi‘i jurist Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn al-Hasan al-Khala‘i (d. 492 AH / 1099 CE) and compiled (takhrij) by Ahmad ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Husayn al-Shirazi.
Structure and Content
The work constitutes the fourth installment in a twenty-part collection commonly known as al-Khala‘iyyat (The Khala‘i Parts), which gathers selected narrations containing elevated chains of transmission (‘awali) and rare reports (ghara’ib) narrated by Egyptian traditionists.
The text opens with an auditory transmission chain recorded at the Old Mosque (al-Jami‘ al-‘Atiq) in Egypt, where it was read to the Maliki genealogist and syndicate chief Abu ‘Ali Muhammad ibn As‘ad ibn ‘Ali al-Husayni, from Abu Muhammad ‘Abdullah ibn Rifa‘ah ibn Ghadir al-Sa‘di, on the authority of al-Khala‘i. The first narrative entry in this part is transmitted through Abu Muhammad ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn ‘Umar ibn Muhammad ibn Sa‘id ibn al-Nahhas from a reading in Jumada al-Ula 413 AH, reporting on the authority of Anas ibn Malik that a man asked the Prophet ﷺ about the Final Hour, to which he replied: مَا أَعْدَدْتَ لَهَا؟ ("What have you prepared for it?").
Transmission and Reception
The twenty parts of al-Khala‘iyyat came to be regarded among scholars as holding the highest-ranking (a‘la) chains of transmission originating from Egyptian transmitters. The fourth part circulated widely across the Levant and Egypt within hadith audition circles. The historian ‘Alam al-Din al-Birzali recorded reading it from the Alexandrian scholar Abu al-Qasim ‘Abd al-Rahman ibn Hibat Allah ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Umyuti (known as Ibn al-Qaddar, d. 687 AH), and he noted reading the third, fourth, and fifth parts to the Hanbali scholar ‘Umar ibn Ahmad ibn ‘Abd al-Da’im al-Maqdisi (d. 699 AH) through his audition from Ibn Sabbah.
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