Khumasiyyat Ibn al-Naqqur
- Author died
- 565 AH
- Editions
- Manuscript published in the free Jawāmi‘ al-Kalim software affiliated with the Islamweb website
Khumasiyyat Ibn al-Naqqur (خماسيات ابن النقور) is a short hadith tract (juzʾ) compiled by Jaʿfar ibn Ibrahim al-Makki comprising elevated prophetic traditions narrated through five-tier chains of transmission (khumasiyyat) from the audition records of the Iraqi traditionist Abu al-Husayn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn al-Naqqur (381–470 AH / 991–1077 CE) .
Compilation and Content
The work—also titled Juzʾ fihi ahadith hisan—was selected directly from the original certificates and hearing notebooks (usul samaʿat) of Abu al-Husayn ibn al-Naqqur al-Bazzaz in Baghdad . In hadith terminology, a khumasi transmission is one where only five narrators stand between the transmitter and the Prophet ﷺ, representing a coveted degree of high transmission (ʿuluww al-isnad) .
The narrations in the text primarily run from Ibn al-Naqqur through his direct Baghdadi teachers, notably Abu al-Qasim ʿIsa ibn ʿAli ibn al-Jarrah, Abu al-Qasim ʿUbayd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Ishaq ibn Hubaba, Abu Tahir al-Mukhallis, and Abu al-Husayn Muhammad ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Daqqaq . The predominant intermediate authority in these chains is Abu al-Qasim al-Baghawi, through whom Ibn al-Naqqur's teachers received traditions from earlier masters such as Talut ibn ʿAbbad, Kamil ibn Talha al-Jahdari, Dawud ibn Rushayd, and Shayban ibn Farrukh, going back to Companions of the Prophet including Anas ibn Malik, Abu Umama al-Bahili, and al-Nabigha al-Jaʿdi . The collection includes moral exhortations, virtues of faith and knowledge, and the famous account of al-Nabigha al-Jaʿdi reciting his poetry before the Prophet ﷺ .
Transmission and Reception
The collection was widely transmitted across successive generations through authorization (ijaza) from Ibn al-Naqqur to Abu al-Karam al-Mubarak ibn al-Hasan al-Shahrazuri, and through him to al-Sharif Yunus ibn Yahya al-Hashimi and Abu al-Hasan ʿAli ibn al-Muqayyir . Later traditionists cataloged their chains of transmission back to the work, including Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani in al-Muʿjam al-mufahras and al-Majmaʿ al-muʾassas, Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti in Anshab al-kuthub, al-Qasim ibn Yusuf al-Tujibi in his Barnamaj, and Muhammad ibn Sulayman al-Rudani in Silat al-khalaf .
The text was also transmitted in Mecca through scholar families; Sitt al-Kull bint Ibrahim al-Tabariyya received it from her father in 712 AH and narrated it to Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi, while her relative Khadija bint Ahmad al-Tabariyya heard it from her grandmother Hasana bint Muhammad ibn Kamil . Manuscript copies of the treatise have survived in the al-Zahiriyya Library in Damascus as part of the historical collections of the Madrasa al-ʿUmariyya .
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