Mawarid al-Imam al-Bayhaqi fi Kitabihi al-Sunan al-Kubra
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Mawarid al-Imam al-Bayhaqi fi Kitabihi al-Sunan al-Kubra (The Sources of Imam al-Bayhaqi in His Work al-Sunan al-Kubra) is a specialized bibliographic and hadith study by Najm Abd al-Rahman Khalaf, analyzing the oral and written sources utilized by Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi (d. 458 AH / 1066 CE) in his compendium al-Sunan al-Kubra and examining his methodology in transmitting from them .
Purpose and Scope
The author undertook the work to identify al-Bayhaqi’s source material, evaluate its scholarly weight, and examine how al-Bayhaqi integrated, adopted, critiqued, and transmitted earlier works . Khalaf categorized al-Bayhaqi's sources into two main types:
- Oral transmissions received directly from teachers through continuous audition (al-sama' al-muttasil) .
- Written and compiled books, transmitted primarily through direct audition from their authors or their transmitters, or through authorization (ijazah), written transmission (mukatabah), or found manuscripts (wijadah) .
Given that al-Sunan al-Kubra contains over thirty thousand chains of transmission (isnad), full exhaustiveness posed practical challenges; Khalaf therefore documented the sources explicitly named by al-Bayhaqi and examined at least one-fifth of the book's chains, identifying 169 specific written works .
Structure and Methodology
The work is divided into two principal parts:
- Part One: Inventory of Sources (Mawarid al-Bayhaqi fi al-Sunan al-Kubra): A catalog of al-Bayhaqi’s written references arranged by subject matter, and chronologically by author death date within each genre . The categories include Quranic sciences, Sahih compilations, Sunan collections, Musnad works, specialized hadith treatises and ajza', as well as al-Bayhaqi’s reliance on the legal writings of al-Shafi'i and his citations of his own earlier compositions, such as al-Asma' wa-l-Sifat, Shu'ab al-Iman, al-Khilafiyyat, and Ma'rifat al-Sunan wa-l-Athar . Each entry is corroborated with sample citations from al-Sunan al-Kubra .
- Part Two: Critical Methodological Study (Dirasah Naqdiyyah li-Manhaj al-Bayhaqi fi Mawarid al-Sunan al-Kubra): An analysis of al-Bayhaqi's transmission practices . It highlights that al-Bayhaqi quoted his sources almost entirely through unbroken chains of transmission (asānīd) and frequently utilized multiple transmission routes for individual works—such as three routes for the Sunan of Abu Dawud al-Sijistani, five routes for al-Musnad al-Kabir of al-Darimi, and six routes for Musnad al-Saffar .
Publication and Related Works
The study was published in Riyadh by Maktabat al-Rushd in 1410 AH (1989/1990 CE) in an 81-page volume, and appeared as an academic paper in the journal of the Islamic University of Madinah (Majallat al-Jami'ah al-Islamiyyah) . It forms part of a series of research studies by Najm Abd al-Rahman Khalaf dedicated to al-Bayhaqi’s al-Sunan al-Kubra, alongside works such as al-Sina'ah al-Hadithiyyah fi al-Sunan al-Kubra, Mu'jam al-Jarh wa-l-Ta'dil li-Rijal al-Sunan al-Kubra, Kashshaf Mawadi' al-Sina'ah al-Hadithiyyah, and 'Ulum al-Isnad min al-Sunan al-Kubra .
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