Fadail Amir al-Muminin Muawiya li Abi al-Qasim al-Saqati
- Author died
- 406 AH
- Editions
- Fadail Amir al-Muminin Muawiya li Abi al-Qasim al-Saqati
Fada'il Amir al-Mu'minin Mu'awiya (Virtues of the Commander of the Faithful Mu'awiya) is a hadith treatise compiled by the traditionist Abu al-Qasim Ubayd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Saqati (d. 406 AH / 1015 CE) that brings together narrations and reports concerning the virtues and merits of the companion and caliph Mu'awiya ibn Abi Sufyan .
Structure and Transmission
The work is organized as a single short collection (juz') containing 32 numbered traditions and historical anecdotes . The reports focus on Mu'awiya's status, his scribal role in recording the divine revelation, prophecies of his entry into Paradise, and reconciliatory interactions between him and other early figures such as Ali ibn Abi Talib and al-Husayn ibn Ali .
Al-Saqati related the collection in Mecca to Abu Mansur Tahir ibn al-Abbas al-Marwazi . The chain of transmission of the manuscript passed from al-Marwazi through Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Husayn ibn Sasra, Abu Muhammad Hibat Allah ibn Ahmad al-Akfani, Abu Tahir Barakat ibn Ibrahim al-Khashu'i, and Abu Muhammad Isma'il ibn Ibrahim ibn Abi al-Yusr al-Tanukhi . A preserved manuscript of the work is housed in the Zahiriyya Library (MS 4493, comprising eight folios), transcribed from an earlier exemplar dated 520 AH .
Sources and Critical Reception
The vast majority of the narrations in the text were received by al-Saqati directly from a single primary informant, Ishaq ibn Muhammad ibn Ishaq al-Susi, with only the final report transmitted via Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn Ibrahim al-Tustari .
Hadith critics and biographical authorities severely criticized the authenticity of the material transmitted through al-Susi in this work . Al-Dhahabi in Mizan al-I'tidal and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in Lisan al-Mizan singled out al-Susi as an ignorant transmitter who produced repulsive fabrications (al-mawdu'at al-samjah) concerning the virtues of Mu'awiya that were recorded by Ubayd Allah al-Saqati, concluding that the responsibility for the fabrications fell either on al-Susi or on his obscure, unidentified teachers . Additionally, when examining one of the treatise's traditions, the historian Ibn Asakir remarked that, alongside its objectionable content (inkar), its chain of narration was broken .
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