Bulghat al-Talib al-Hathith fi Sahih Awali al-Hadith

Bulghat al-Talib al-Hathith fi Sahih Awali al-Hadith (The Provision of the Diligent Seeker in Authentic Elevated Hadiths) is a hadith compilation extracted by the traditionist Diya al-Din al-Maqdisi (569–643 AH / 1173–1245 CE) from the transmissions of his maternal uncle, Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudamah (d. 620 AH / 1223 CE) Bulghat al-Talib al-Hathi…+1.

Composition and Content

The work functions as the mashyakha (scholarly audition index) of Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudamah, compiled and extracted (takhrij) on his behalf by his nephew Diya al-Din al-Sunan wal-Ahkam an al-…+1. The collection focuses on authentic traditions (sahih) with elevated chains of transmission (awali) that Ibn Qudamah had heard from his teachers Bulghat al-Talib al-Hathi…+1. In presenting individual narrations, Diya al-Din notes the relative brevity and height of the chains, comparing the number of intermediaries back to the early narrators against standard compilations such as Sahih Muslim Bulghat al-Talib al-Hathi….

Transmission and Preservation

The text was transmitted from Muwaffaq al-Din Ibn Qudamah through several of his students, including Abu al-Fida Ismail ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Munadi and Abd al-Hafiz ibn Abd al-Khaliq ibn Badran Bulghat al-Talib al-Hathi…+1. Subsequent chains of transmission passed through figures such as Shihab al-Din Ahmad ibn Mansur al-Jawhari and al-Qasim ibn Muhammad al-Birzali Bulghat al-Talib al-Hathi…. Later traditionists, including Zakariyya al-Ansari and Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Rudani in his bibliographical register Silat al-khalaf bi-mawsul al-salaf, recorded their chains of transmission back to the author al-Sunan wal-Ahkam an al-…+1.

Only parts two and seven (al-juz' al-thani and al-juz' al-sabi') of the original manuscript are known to have survived, preserved in collections including al-Azhar Library, with manuscript notes recording audition dates as early as 617 AH Bulghat al-Talib al-Hathi…+1.