Juz Ibn Faris
- Author died
- 346 AH
- Editions
- Arwiqah lil-Dirasat wa-al-Nashr
Juz Ibn Faris (Juzʾ Ibn Fāris) is a hadith booklet containing transmissions of the Isfahani traditionist Ibn Faris al-Asbahani (248–346 AH / 862–957 CE) .
Author and Context
The authority of the collection is Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Ja'far ibn Ahmad ibn Faris al-Asbahani, who was born in 248 AH and died in Shawwal 346 AH at nearly one hundred years of age . Regarded as a righteous traditionist and the chief transmitter (musnid) of Isfahan of his generation, he attained elevated chains of narration (ʿuluww al-isnad) . Ibn Mandah counted him among the five foremost hadith authorities of the world in his era, alongside Abu al-Abbas al-Asamm in Nishapur, Ibn al-A'rabi in Mecca, Khaythama in Tripoli, and Ismail al-Saffar in Baghdad . Both Ibn Mardawayh and Abd Allah ibn Ahmad al-Sudharjani confirmed his reliability in their biographical histories .
Ibn Faris transmitted from several prominent scholars, uniquely surviving to narrate from authorities such as Muhammad ibn Asim al-Thaqafi, Yunus ibn Habib, Ahmad ibn Yunus al-Dabbi, Harun ibn Sulayman, Ahmad ibn Isam, Ismail Samawayh, Yahya ibn Hatim, and Hudhayfa ibn Ghiyath . Among those who transmitted from him were Abu Abd Allah ibn Mandah, Abu Bakr ibn Abi Ali al-Dhakwani, Abu Bakr ibn Furak, Ibn Mardawayh, al-Husayn ibn Ibrahim al-Jammal, Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani, and Ghulam Muhsin Ahmad ibn Yazdad .
Transmission and Reception
The primary surviving chain of transmission for the booklet runs through Ibn Faris's student Abu Ali Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ahmad ibn Yazdad, known as Ghulam Muhsin (d. 418 AH) . From him, it was conveyed by Abu Talib al-Kandulani and Abu al-Fath Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn al-Husayn al-Mu'allim to Abu Tahir al-Silafi in Alexandria . Subsequent transmissions passed through al-Silafi's maternal grandson Abd al-Rahman ibn Makki ibn al-Hasib, Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Umar al-Wani, and down to Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani .
The work is documented across later hadith catalogs and biographical literature:
- Ibn Hajar listed it in both al-Majma' al-mu'assas and al-Mu'jam al-mufahras .
- Ibn Tulun recorded it in al-Fihrist al-awsat, describing its opening and closing hadiths .
- Al-Dhahabi cited hadiths through its transmission chain .
- Al-Sakhawi referenced it in al-Tuhfa al-latifa, and Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti included it in his Mu'jam and Ansab al-kutub .
- Diya' al-Din al-Maqdisi recorded an audition note for a collection titled Ahadith Ibn Faris Abd Allah ibn Ja'far via a line tracing back to Abu Bakr ibn Mus'ab .
Manuscripts
An incomplete portion consisting only of the first folio is preserved in the Zahiriyya library within the Umariyya collection (Majmu' 51) . A complete manuscript survives at Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University in Riyadh (MS 7236, folios 130–133), copied and transmitted by Yusuf ibn Shahin, the grandson of Ibn Hajar . This copy preserves historic audition certificates, including sessions read before Ibn Hajar in 851 AH and 898 AH, as well as earlier transmitted audition records under al-Silafi (576 AH), Abd al-Rahman ibn Makki (651 AH), and al-Wani (726 AH) .
Answer updated