Fadail al-Quran lil-Firyabi
- Author died
- 301 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Rushd
Fada'il al-Qur'an (The Virtues of the Quran) is an early hadith treatise compiled by the hadith scholar and judge Abu Bakr al-Firyabi (207–301 AH / 822–913 CE), collecting prophetic traditions and reports of early authorities regarding the merits and recitation of the Quran.
Content and Method
The work is documented in manuscript records under the title Fada'il al-Qur'an and as Fada'il al-Qur'an wa-ma ja'a fihi min al-fadl wa-fi kam yuqra' (The Virtues of the Quran, What Has Reached Us Regarding Its Excellence, and the Period Over Which It Is Recited). Al-Firyabi arranged the text into chapters with headings written in a larger script, organizing narrations with their full chains of transmission (isnad).
The text begins with a narration transmitted via Qutayba ibn Sa'id from Ibn Lahi'a from Minsharah that the Prophet ﷺ said: لو كان القرآن في إهاب ما مسّته النار ("If the Quran were placed in a leather hide, the Fire would not touch it"). It addresses the rewards of learning, teaching, and melodiously reciting the Quran, as well as the status of its memorizers. The collection concludes with a report transmitted through Uthman ibn Sa'id from Ibn Lahi'a from Bakr ibn Sawada from Sahl ibn Sa'd concerning people who recite the Quran without it penetrating past their collarbones.
Transmission and Reception
The book was transmitted from al-Firyabi through the narration of Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Muhammad ibn Sa'id al-Darraz. Later traditionists frequently cited al-Firyabi's narrations when examining parallel lines of transmission alongside works of the same genre, such as those of Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Sallam, Ibn Abi Shayba, and Ibn al-Durays.
A sixth-century AH manuscript of the text is preserved in al-Zahiriyya Library in Damascus (no. 3868), completed in Dhu al-Hijjah 567 AH. It spans two parts (juz'an) of al-Firyabi's text alongside a part by Ibn Salama, bound within a larger codex that contains certificates of auditory transmission (sama'at) and reading records documented between 617 AH and 737 AH across Damascus and Baalbek, including an endowment note to al-Madrasa al-Diya'iyyah.
The work was edited and published in a single volume by Yusuf Uthman Fadl Allah Jibril (Riyadh: Maktabat al-Rushd, 1409 AH / 1989 CE).
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