Istidrak al-Ziyadat ala Kitab al-Rihla
- Author died
- 1442 AH
- Editions
- Amīn Damaj (later photolithographed / reprinted by Dār al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyyah, Beirut)
Istidrak al-Ziyadat ala Kitab al-Rihla (Supplement of Additions to the Book of Travel) is a scholarly appendix compiled by the Syrian hadith scholar Nur al-Din Itr (d. 1442 AH / 2020 CE) to supplement al-Khatib al-Baghdadi's classical treatise al-Rihla fi Talab al-Hadith (Travel in Search of Hadith) .
Background and Purpose
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi's al-Rihla fi Talab al-Hadith was dedicated to a specific category of travel: journeys undertaken across long distances solely to hear, verify, or transmit a single prophetic report . When editing al-Khatib's work for publication within the series Silsilat Rawa'i' Turathina al-Islami, Itr appended this supplement to gather further reports and narrations of single-hadith journeys that al-Khatib had omitted . The material was extracted from across tens of thousands of biographical entries in classical biographical dictionaries, yielding an amount of supplementary material comparable in volume to the original text .
Contents and Structure
The supplement is organized thematically into historical periods and topics:
- Journeys of the Companions to the Prophet ﷺ (Rihlat al-Sahaba ila al-Nabi): Al-Khatib had not included instances of delegations and individual Companions traveling to the Prophet ﷺ specifically to inquire about single legal issues or commandments . Itr supplied reports such as the arrival of Dhimam ibn Tha'labah, the Bedouin from Najd inquiring about the pillars of Islam, the delegation of Abd al-Qays, and various desert dwellers who traveled exclusively to seek rulings from the Prophet ﷺ .
- Statements and Traditions of the Companions: Narrations illustrating the Companions' dedication to traveling for single texts, such as Abu al-Darda's declaration that he would journey to Bark al-Ghimad for the explanation of a single Quranic verse .
- Journeys of the Successors and Subsequent Generations: Reports detailing travels undertaken by figures such as Amir ibn Sharahil al-Sha'bi, Masruq, and Makhul al-Dimashqi to confirm single narrations or legal points from surviving authorities across different regions .
Completion
Itr completed the drafting and commentary of the supplement on Saturday, 5 Ramadan 1394 AH (21 September 1974 CE) . In his concluding remarks, he noted that exhaustive coverage of all scholarly travels is impossible within a single monograph due to the sheer volume of hadith transmitters who traveled, stating that his selection was intended to provide inspiring historical evidence of the early scholars' dedication to preserving prophetic traditions .
Answer updated