al-Taliq ala al-Arbain fi al-Tasawwuf lil-Sulami - ضمن Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dār ‘Ālam al-Fawā’id lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
al-Ta‘līq ‘alā al-Arba‘īn fī al-Taṣawwuf lil-Sulamī (Commentary on al-Sulami's Forty Hadiths on Sufism) is a critical hadith commentary by the Yemeni scholar ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Mu‘allimi (d. 1386 AH / 1966 CE) evaluating the authenticity of the traditions compiled in Kitāb al-Arba‘īn fī al-Taṣawwuf by Abu ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sulami (d. 412 AH) .
Background and Composition
The work originated when the council of the Da'irat al-Ma'arif al-Uthmaniyyah in Hyderabad prepared to print al-Sulami's compilation of forty Sufi-themed hadiths and requested al-Mu‘allimi to write an accompanying commentary evaluating the strength and weakness of its narrations . Al-Mu‘allimi fulfilled the request, composing his notes on separate leaves meant to be set alongside the text, though the commentary was not printed with that original edition for unrecorded reasons . It was subsequently edited and published as the thirteenth treatise in the fifteenth volume of al-Mu‘allimi's collected works, Āthār al-Mu‘allimī .
Structure and Method
Al-Mu‘allimi confined his work to takhrīj (hadith sourcing) and critical evaluation rather than establishing the critical edition of al-Sulami's base text . In treating the forty narrations, he employed a concise method suited to the size of the treatise: he identified other collections where each hadith is found, evaluated the chains of transmission, pointed out criticized or unreliable narrators, documented supporting narrations (shawāhid) where available, and cited reference works by volume and page . A similar sourcing work for the same collection had earlier been authored by al-Sakhawi (d. 902 AH), of which al-Mu‘allimi was unaware at the time of writing, though the critical conclusions of both scholars broadly aligned across most narrations .
Introduction and Methodological Principles
Al-Mu‘allimi prefaced the hadith evaluations with a methodological introduction detailing seven core principles regarding hadith criticism and al-Sulami's collection:
- The Forty-Hadith Genre: He addressed the widespread narration regarding memorizing forty hadiths ( مَن حفظ على أمتي أربعين حديثًا... ), highlighting that hadith masters agreed on its weakness despite its many transmission routes, and recounted the history of thematic forty-hadith compilations, beginning with ‘Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak (d. 181 AH) .
- Categories of Transmitted Hadiths: He divided reported traditions into three categories—those judged established, those judged baseless, and those that remain indeterminate—explaining the methodology of early critical scholars who narrated baseless reports only when explicitly clarifying their defect .
- Chain and Text Disconnect: A weak chain does not inherently invalidate a text if corroborated elsewhere, nor does a chain of trustworthy narrators guarantee sound transmission due to potential hidden errors, requiring precision and restraint in terminology when grading chains .
- The Pursuit of Elevated and Rare Chains: Transmitters' eagerness for brevity of transmission (‘uluww) and unique reports (gharāba) frequently caused the inclusion of defective narrations over established ones, a tendency al-Mu‘allimi specifically attributed to al-Sulami's selection of weak reports when stronger evidence existed .
- Absence from Early Reference Works: Authentic hadiths were systematically gathered by early authorities by the third century AH; hence, a narration absent from the foundational collections of the early masters and appearing only in late compilations carries an evident mark of weakness .
- Reports Found Exclusively in Biographical and Local Histories: Narrations preserved only in biographical dictionaries, books on weak narrators, or regional histories (such as those by al-‘Uqayli, Ibn ‘Adi, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, or Ibn ‘Asakir) are generally very weak, as authors often cited them precisely to illustrate the narrator's flaw .
- Two Approaches to Doctrinal Inference: Authors using hadith fall into two groups: those whose belief is formed upon sound evidence which they seek to present, and those who adopt a position through other means (such as conformism) and subsequently seek supporting hadiths, categorizing al-Sulami's method under the latter .
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