Ithaf al-Murtaqi bi-Tarajim Shuyukh al-Bayhaqi
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- Dār al-Maymān lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzīʻ
Ithaf al-Murtaqi bi-Tarajim Shuyukh al-Bayhaqi (Bestowing upon the Ascender: Biographies of al-Bayhaqi's Teachers) is a biographical dictionary compiled by Abu Shadha Mahmud ibn Abd al-Fattah al-Nahhal, documenting the direct teachers of the hadith scholar and jurist Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi (384–458 AH / 994–1066 CE) across twenty-seven of al-Bayhaqi's works.
Background and Purpose
Al-Nahhal composed the work to address the lack of an independent biographical source dedicated to collecting and identifying al-Bayhaqi's direct teachers in a single volume. A central motivation was al-Bayhaqi's habit of varying the designations of his teachers—alternating between full names, partial names, agnomens (kunyas), titles (laqabs), or professions, sometimes using more than ten variant designations for a single individual. Because standard biographical dictionaries did not always list these transmitters under the specific designations used by al-Bayhaqi, researchers frequently experienced difficulties identifying them, occasionally leading to the conflation of separate narrators and inaccuracies in evaluating chains of transmission (isnads), an ambiguity that had also affected earlier scholars such as al-Dhahabi.
Methodology and Structure
Al-Nahhal gathered and surveyed twenty-seven printed titles by al-Bayhaqi across available editions, consulting manuscripts and external works that drew directly from al-Bayhaqi's transmissions—such as Tarikh Dimashq by Ibn Asakir—when necessary to rectify textual corruptions or omissions.
For each biography, the author adhered to a structured methodology:
- Recording every variant designation and appellation used by al-Bayhaqi for the teacher.
- Establishing the teacher's complete name and pedigree using general biographical dictionaries, local histories (such as Tarikh Naysabur, Al-Siyaq, Tarikh Baghdad, Tarikh Bayhaq, and Al-Iqd al-Thamin), literary and philological references (such as Bughyat al-Wu'at, Yatimat al-Dahr, and Dumyat al-Qasr), genealogical works (such as Al-Ansab by al-Sam'ani), and obituary chronicles.
- Listing the teachers of al-Bayhaqi's teachers whose narrations appear in al-Bayhaqi's works, arranged alphabetically.
- Listing their students (al-Bayhaqi's contemporaries), led by al-Bayhaqi, while identifying the mode of transmission (such as dictation, authorization, or written transmission) and the locations where al-Bayhaqi heard from them, including Bayhaq, Nishapur, Baghdad, and Kufa.
- Identifying the specific books and texts transmitted by al-Bayhaqi through each teacher, whether extant works or lost compositions, such as Tarikh Naysabur and Mu'jam al-Hakim by al-Hakim al-Naysaburi and Al-Jami' al-Kabir by Sufyan al-Thawri.
- Summarizing scholarly evaluations regarding the reliability (ta'dil) or criticism (tajrih) of each transmitter, vocalizing difficult names and lineages, and identifying places and titles cited in the entries.
The work concludes with indexes for agnomens (kunyas), textual corruptions (tashifat and tahrifat) affecting the names of al-Bayhaqi's teachers, and an appendix containing biographies of teachers reported to have taught al-Bayhaqi but whose narrations do not appear in his printed works.
Reception and Publication
The work includes an introduction by the contemporary hadith scholar Mustafa al-Adawi, who praised its utility for researchers assessing the narrations and unique transmissions found across al-Bayhaqi's works. The book was published in a single volume by Dar al-Mayman in Riyadh, with its first edition issued in 1429 AH (2008 CE).
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