Fadl Rajab li-Ibn Asakir
- Author died
- 571 AH
- Editions
- Mu'assasat al-Rayyan
Fadl Rajab (The Virtue of Rajab), also known as Juz' fi fadl Rajab, is a hadith booklet (juz') compiled through dictation by the Damascene traditionist Abu al-Qasim Ibn Asakir (499–571 AH / 1105–1176 CE), assembling traditions, reports, and poetry concerning the virtues and religious practices associated with the sacred month of Rajab.
Composition and Transmission
The work consists of dictation sessions (amali) delivered by Ibn Asakir in Damascus during the month of Rajab in 566 AH. The first session was dictated on the evening of Thursday, 15 Rajab 566 AH, to his nephew Abu al-Fadl Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ibn Hibat Allah al-Shafi'i. A subsequent session was held at Dar al-Sunnah in Damascus on Thursday, 22 Rajab 566 AH. Transmission chains for the text were later documented by hadith scholars, including Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in his bibliographical index al-Mu'jam al-mufahras.
Content and Structure
The booklet comprises sixteen numbered narrations and reports, including Prophetic hadiths, statements of the Companions and Successors (athar), historical narratives, and verses of poetry:
- Virtues and Quranic Exegesis: Narrations regarding the sanctity of the four sacred months under إِنَّ عِدَّةَ الشُّهُورِ عِنْدَ اللَّهِ اثْنَا عَشَرَ شَهْرًا فِي كِتَابِ اللَّهِ (Quran 9:36), highlighting the amplified weight of good deeds and transgressions during these months according to the commentary of Ibn Abbas.
- Fasting and Observances: Traditions encouraging fasting during Rajab, including the narration describing a river in Paradise called Rajab whose water is whiter than milk and sweeter than honey, reserved for those who fast during the month. Other reports detail nightly prayers and supplications tied to the final days of Rajab, identifying the twenty-seventh of the month as the day the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was commissioned.
- Pre-Islamic Sanctity and Anecdotes: Accounts describing the pre-Islamic Arabs' veneration of Rajab, which was known as al-Asamm ("the deaf/silent") because weapons were laid down and paths were safe. It also features dialogues before the Caliph Umar ibn al-Khattab regarding individuals who successfully supplicated against oppressors during Rajab in the Jahiliyya period.
- Poetry: The booklet concludes with lines of poetry composed by Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn al-Husayn al-Shirazi exhorting believers to fast and worship during Rajab.
Throughout the text, Ibn Asakir occasionally appends critical remarks on transmission chains, identifying broken links (inqita'), verifying narrator identities, and designating certain atypical narrations as gharib (singular/strange).
Printed Editions
The text was edited by Jamal Azzun and published by Mu'assasat al-Rayyan in Beirut in 2000 CE (1421 AH), as part of a collective volume of treatises on Rajab alongside Ada' ma wajab min bayan wad' al-wadda'in fi Rajab by Ibn Dihya.
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