al-Shukr li-Ibn Abi al-Dunya
- Author died
- 281 AH
- Editions
- al-Maktab al-Islāmī
al-Shukr (Arabic: كتاب الشكر, lit. 'The Book of Gratitude') is a 3rd-century AH / 9th-century CE treatise on the virtues and reality of gratitude to God by the Baghdadi traditionist and educator Ibn Abi al-Dunya (208–281 AH / 823–894 CE) .
Subject and Content
The work compiles transmitted reports concerning gratitude (al-shukr), recognizing divine favors, and expressing praise (al-hamd) . It includes prophetic hadiths on supplications of praise for the morning and evening, the merit of praising God upon receiving sustenance or when seeing afflicted individuals, and the reward of the grateful believer .
In addition to prophetic traditions, the text collects narrations attributed to earlier prophets, including dialogues of Dawud and Musa acknowledging their inability to fully thank God because the ability to give thanks is itself a divine blessing requiring gratitude . It also gathers sayings and supplications from early figures and scholars such as Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, Ali ibn Abi Talib, Aisha, Al-Hasan al-Basri, Sulayman al-Taymi, Bakr ibn Abd Allah al-Muzani, Sufyan al-Thawri, and Sufyan ibn Uyayna . The book further incorporates moral and ascetic poetry recited on the theme of gratitude, including verses by Mahmud al-Warraq .
Method and Transmission
Ibn Abi al-Dunya structures the material around narrations documented with full chains of transmission (isnad) tracing back to his teachers, including Ismail ibn Ibrahim al-Murri, Abd al-Aziz ibn Bahr, and Ali ibn al-Ja'd . The book was transmitted by his students, among them Abu Ali ibn Safwan, and was studied in traditional transmission circles in subsequent centuries .
Later scholars frequently cited and excerpted its contents in thematic works on ethics, hadith, and Quranic exegesis, such as Al-Bayhaqi in Shu'ab al-Iman (The Branches of Faith), Ibn al-Qayyim in 'Uddat al-Sabirin wa-Dhakhirat al-Shakirin (The Equipment of the Patient and the Provision of the Grateful), and Al-Suyuti in Al-Durr al-Manthur .
Manuscripts and Editions
Manuscripts of the text are preserved across several international libraries, including the Nuruosmaniye Library in Istanbul (MS 1208), Princeton University Library (Garrett collection, MSS 1420 and 744 h), Dar al-Kutub al-Misriyya in Cairo (1/129), the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin (Landberg/Brill collection, nos. 384 and 745), the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus (MS 1137), and the Islamic University of Medina manuscript repository .
The work has been edited by Yasin Muhammad al-Sawwas and published by Dar Ibn Kathir in Damascus (1405 AH / 1985 CE) .
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