Majlis min Amali al-Batriqani
- Author died
- 460 AH
- Editions
- Majlis min Amali al-Batriqani
Majlis min Amali al-Batriqani (A Dictation Session from the Dictations of al-Batriqani) is a short hadith booklet (juz') dictated by the Isfahani hadith scholar and Quran reciter Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn al-Fadl al-Batriqani (372–460 AH / 982–1068 CE), recording seventeen traditions and reports transmitted with his chains of transmission from his teachers .
Composition and Transmission
Al-Batriqani dictated the session in the month of Ramadan in 458 AH . Its transmission line passed through Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Abi Nasr ibn Abi Ishaq al-Ushnani, to whom it was read on Monday, the final day of Shawwal in 477 AH, with Abu al-Rida Ahmad ibn Mas'ud ibn Sa'd al-Naqid reading aloud . It was subsequently transmitted by Abu Ya'qub Yusuf ibn Hibat Allah ibn Mahmud ibn al-Tufayl al-Dimashqi, and the surviving text preserves an audition certificate (sama') for Sulayman ibn Ibrahim ibn Hibat Allah ibn Rahmah al-As'adari . Al-Sam'ani also recorded hearing a dictation session from the amali of al-Batriqani in Isfahan via Abu al-Khayr 'Abd al-Salam ibn Mahmud al-Hasanabadhi .
Contents and Structure
The work comprises seventeen numbered narrations, opening with the hadith of intentions: إنما الأعمال بالنيات وإنما لإمرئ ما نوى ("Actions are only by intentions, and every person shall have only what he intended"), which al-Batriqani received from Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn Yusuf al-Bayyi' in 387 AH . The subsequent narrations cover diverse topics, including:
- Prophetic supplications, such as the prayer uttered in prostration: اللهم اغفر ذنبي كله دقه وجله وأوله وآخره وعلانيته وسره ("O Allah, forgive all my sins, the minor and the major, the first and the last, the open and the secret"), which the text notes was transmitted by Muslim through the same path from Yunus ibn 'Abd al-A'la, as well as the supplication upon seeing an afflicted person .
- Legal and ritual reports, such as praying over a fresh grave and a dialogue on dry ablution (tayammum) between 'Ammar ibn Yasir and 'Abd Allah ibn Mas'ud .
- Virtues and seasonal devotion, including the five distinctive blessings granted to the Muslim community in Ramadan and inquiries regarding the Night of Decree (Laylat al-Qadr) .
- Etiquette of learning, such as a report advising a scribe to place the pen behind his ear to better remember what is dictated, and warnings against pursuing religious knowledge for worldly profit .
- Exhortations, eschatological descriptions of the resurrection in burial shrouds, and a narrative concerning the prophet Yahya ibn Zakariyya encountering Iblis .
The session closes with a report concerning camel-driver chanting (hida') by Anjashah, followed by poetic verses shared by al-Batriqani's paternal uncle Abu Mansur 'Abd al-Wahid ibn Muhammad al-Musaddad .
Manuscripts
A manuscript copy of the text is preserved in the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus within the 'Umariyya collection (no. 40, item 16, fols. 264b–271a) . Additional manuscript holdings of the work are cataloged in libraries in Riyadh and Mecca .
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