Amali Abi Yala al-Farra
- Author died
- 458 AH
- Editions
- Manuscript published in the free program Jawāmiʿ al-Kalim affiliated with Islamweb
Amali Abi Yala al-Farra (Amālī Abī Yaʿlā al-Farrāʾ, "The Dictated Transmissions of Abu Ya'la al-Farra") is a collection of hadith dictation sessions delivered by the Hanbali jurist and traditionist al-Qadi Abu Yala Ibn al-Farra (d. 458 AH / 1066 CE) .
Composition and Content
The work consists of sessions (majālis) in which Abu Ya'la dictated prophetic traditions along with their chains of transmission (isnād) to his students, with the first recorded session held on Friday, 5 Muharram 457 AH in Baghdad .
Abu Ya'la transmits these traditions through prominent teachers from whom he received hadiths in his youth, including Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Umar al-Harbi al-Sukkari, Abu al-Qasim Isa ibn Ali ibn Isa al-Wazir, Abu al-Qasim Ubayd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Hubabah, Abu Tahir al-Mukhallis, and Ummat al-Salam bint Ahmad ibn Kamil . The narrated reports cover varied subjects, such as trials and the steadfastness of believers, the beatific vision of God in Paradise, the merits of fasting on Ashura and the Day of Arafah, the virtues of the Prophet's Companions, the etiquette of supplication, and the alignment of speech and deeds with the Sunnah .
Transmission and Reception
The text was transmitted directly from Abu Ya'la by his student al-Qadi Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abd al-Baqi al-Ansari . From al-Ansari, it passed to Abu Hafs Umar ibn Muhammad ibn Tabarzadh, who transmitted the final three sessions by direct audition (samāʿ) and the first three by formal transmission license (ijāzah) . Later scholars who received the work through this lineage included Shams al-Din Abd al-Rahman ibn Muhammad ibn Qudamah and Fakhr al-Din Ali ibn Ahmad ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Bukhari . Another transmission strand documented by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti preserved a three-session segment transmitted from Abu Ya'la via Abu al-Qasim Nasr ibn Ahmad al-Marji .
The text was studied and read in traditional teaching circles in Syria; the historian al-Birzali recorded that Ibn Taymiyyah recited the third session of Abu Ya'la's Amali before the female scholar Sitt al-Arab al-Kindiyyah in Damascus in 704 AH .
Preservation and Publication
A surviving portion containing six dictation sessions is preserved in manuscript form in the al-Zahiriyyah Library in Damascus within the Umariyyah collections (Majmu no. 81) . This portion was edited by Muhammad ibn Nasir al-Ajami and published under the title Juzʾ fīhi sittat majālis min Amālī al-Qāḍī Abī Yaʿlā Ibn al-Farrāʾ by Dar al-Basha'ir al-Islamiyyah in Beirut in 1425 AH / 2004 CE .
Answer updated