Masa'il al-Imam Ahmad riwayat Abi Dawud al-Sijistani
- Author died
- 241 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat Ibn Taymiyyah
Masa'il al-Imam Ahmad riwayat Abi Dawud al-Sijistani is a collection of legal and theological questions posed by the hadith scholar Abu Dawud al-Sijistani (202–275 AH / 817–889 CE) to Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal (164–241 AH / 780–855 CE), recording Ahmad's direct answers .
Scope and Contents
The book primarily documents the jurisprudential rulings (masa'il) of Ahmad ibn Hanbal arranged according to topical legal chapters (abwab) . In addition to fiqh, it covers questions concerning military expeditions and statecraft (siyar), creed ('aqidah), ethics (adab), and hadith sciences—such as the explanation of uncommon vocabulary (gharib al-hadith), the reconciliation of apparent contradictions in texts (ta'wil mukhtalaf al-hadith), hidden defects ('ilal), and narrator evaluation (jarh wa-ta'dil) . It also includes prophetic traditions and narrations (athar) from the Companions and Successors transmitted through Ahmad .
Ahmad’s responses are typically concise, offering direct conclusions without extensive elaboration . While the majority of the material consists of Ahmad’s own statements, Abu Dawud occasionally incorporated concordant reports from other early authorities, expanding this practice significantly in chapters concerning theology, such as the chapters on the Jahmiyyah and faith (iman) . The work is distinct from Su'alat Abi Dawud, which is dedicated specifically to narrator criticism and biographical evaluation .
Transmission and Reception
The text is transmitted from Abu Dawud through his student Abu Bakr Ibn Dasah (d. 346 AH) . It became a primary source for determining Ahmad's positions, heavily utilized by Hanbali jurists who clarified and transmitted his legal doctrines . Abu Bakr al-Khallal (d. 311 AH) gathered and transmitted it from Abu Dawud while compiling his comprehensive collection of Ahmad's teachings . The historian al-Khatib al-Baghdadi possessed a copy among six works by or from Ahmad when he entered Damascus .
Manuscripts and Editions
Among its extant manuscripts is a copy preserved in the Zahiriyyah Library in Damascus copied in 266 AH during Abu Dawud's lifetime, described as the oldest manuscript in that repository . Another manuscript is held in the Mahmudiyyah Library in Medina (MS 650), transcribed in 1219 AH by Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Abd Allah ibn Ahmad across 136 folios; the Zahiriyyah copy contains twenty-six large pages of additional text compared to the Medina manuscript .
The book was printed in Cairo in 1353 AH (1934 CE)—with another report placing it in 1352 AH—edited by Muhammad Bahjat al-Baytar with commentary and an introduction by Muhammad Rashid Rida, and it was later reissued in Beirut and published in a modern edition edited by Tariq ibn 'Iwad Allah in 1420 AH .
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