Itqan ma yahsun min al-akhbar al-daira ala al-alsun
- Author died
- 1061 AH
- Editions
- al-Fārūq al-Ḥadīthah lil-Ṭibā'ah wal-Nashr
Itqan ma yahsun min al-akhbar al-daira ala al-alsun (Mastery of Clarifying Circulating Reports on the Tongues) is a reference work on popular and commonly circulating sayings and hadiths by the Shafi'i scholar and historian Najm al-Din al-Ghazzi (977–1061 AH / 1570–1651 CE) .
Title and Scope
The work is most commonly titled Itqan ma yahsun min al-akhbar al-daira ala al-alsun . Variant phrasings appear across biographical and scholarly sources: Ibrahim ibn Sulayman al-Junayni named it Itqan ma yahsun min bayan al-akhbar al-daira ala al-alsun, adding the word bayan (clarification) ; Muhammad al-Amin al-Muhibbi substituted al-ahadith al-jariya for al-akhbar al-daira; and Kamal al-Din Muhammad al-Ghazzi replaced al-akhbar with al-ahadith in his al-Ward al-Ansi .
The book belongs to the genre of popular hadith literature, which critically assesses statements widely repeated among the populace and attributed to the Prophet Muhammad . Al-Ghazzi compiled the work by synthesizing three prominent earlier treatises on the subject:
- Al-Tadhkirah fi al-ahadith al-mushtahirah (also known as al-La'ali al-manthurah) by Badr al-Din al-Zarkashi .
- Al-Maqasid al-hasanah fi bayan kathir min al-ahadith al-jariyah ala al-alsinah by Shams al-Din al-Sakhawi .
- Al-Durar al-muntathirah fi al-ahadith al-mushtahirah by Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti .
To this synthesis, al-Ghazzi incorporated substantial additions (ziyadat) of circulating sayings not recorded by these three predecessors .
Method and Structure
Al-Ghazzi arranged the book alphabetically by first letter to facilitate reference . He intentionally omitted the prefix "hadith" from the entry headings, noting that several cited sayings were spurious (munkar) or fabricated (mawdu') .
To condense the presentation, al-Ghazzi devised a system of shorthand codes placed before each entry to identify its provenance among his core sources:
- Tha' (ث) for entries shared by all three prior authors: al-Zarkashi, al-Sakhawi, and al-Suyuti .
- Ta'-Waw (طو) for entries shared by al-Sakhawi and al-Suyuti without al-Zarkashi .
- Waw (و) for entries unique to al-Sakhawi .
- Ta' (ط) for entries unique to al-Suyuti .
- Zay (ز) for al-Ghazzi's original additions .
He also used single- or multi-letter abbreviations for classical hadith compilers and collections (such as Kha for al-Bukhari, Mim for Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Qaf for both, Da for Abu Dawud, and Alif for Ahmad ibn Hanbal) . In his evaluations, al-Ghazzi classified reports as authentic (sahih), fair (hasan), or weak (da'if), noting whether a narration was mursal or mawquf, while naming only the Companion for connected (marfu') reports .
Reception and Influence
The work was widely utilized by later scholars of hadith:
- Isma'il ibn Muhammad al-'Ajluni (d. 1162 AH) made Itqan a foundational source for his popular collection Kashf al-khafa', stating in his introduction that the phrase "al-Najm said" refers to al-Ghazzi's Itqan, and quoting almost the entire text throughout his compilation .
- The author's grandson, Ahmad ibn 'Abd al-Karim al-Ghazzi (d. 1143 AH), abridged the book into Al-Jadd al-hathith fi bayan ma laysa bi-hadith, focusing exclusively on reports that are not authentic hadiths, such as non-prophetic traditions (athar) and fabricated sayings .
- Ibrahim ibn Sulayman al-Junayni (d. 1108 AH) extracted al-Ghazzi's distinct additions into an independent treatise titled Ziyadat 'ala al-maqasid al-hasanah wa-l-durar al-muntathirah .
The edited publication of Itqan was established using two primary manuscript copies: one held at the Alexandria Municipal Library and another at the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub) .
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