Misbah al-Zujaja fi Zawaid Ibn Majah

Misbah al-Zujaja fi Zawaid Ibn Majah (The Lamp of the Glass on the Unique Hadiths of Ibn Majah) is a hadith work of the zawa'id (supplementary traditions) genre compiled by the Shafi'i hadith scholar Shihab al-Din al-Busiri (762–840 AH / 1361–1437 CE) al-Mawsua al-Hadithiyya b…+1. The book isolates and evaluates the traditions found in the Sunan of Ibn Majah that are not recorded in the other five canonical Sunni collections al-Mawsua al-Hadithiyya b…+1.

Scope and Methodology

The work gathers all hadiths from the Sunan of Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Yazid Ibn Majah al-Qazwini (209–273 AH) that are absent from the five foundational collections (al-Kutub al-Khamsa): Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Sunan Abi Dawud, Jami al-Tirmidhi, and the Sunan al-Sughra of al-Nasa'i (specifically via the transmission of Ibn al-Sunni) Sunan Ibn Majah. Al-Busiri arranged these additional traditions topically according to standard legal chapters (al-abwab al-fiqhiyya) al-Mawsua al-Hadithiyya b….

In the introduction to the work, al-Busiri defined his selection criteria and critical method:

• If a tradition is recorded in the Five Books or any one of them through the same Companion, he omits it unless Ibn Majah’s version contains an additional wording that bears a distinct legal ruling Sunan Ibn Majah.
• If a tradition is transmitted through multiple Companions and Ibn Majah is unique in transmitting it through one of those routes, he includes it even if the text (matn) is otherwise identical Sunan Ibn Majah.
• Following each report, he notes whether the tradition exists in the Five Books via another Companion; if it is entirely absent from them but found in other collections, he cites those sources to indicate that the report is not completely isolated (fard) Sunan Ibn Majah.
• He examines each chain of transmission (isnad) individually, ruling on its authenticity, fairness, or weakness (sahih, hasan, da'if), and remarks that any chain on which he remains silent requires further scrutiny Sunan Ibn Majah.

Contents and Reception

The total number of supplementary hadiths compiled in the book reaches 1,552 in some printed editions Kayfa Nastafid min al-Kut…. In modern statistical studies of Sunan Ibn Majah, the count of its unique additions over the Five Books stands at 1,339 traditions Majallat al-Jami'a al-Isl…+1. Among these traditions analyzed in al-Busiri's work, 428 have authentic chains with trustworthy narrators, 199 have fair chains, and 613 range between frail, uncorroborated (munkar), or fabricated Majallat al-Jami'a al-Isl….

Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani commended the compilation, observing that while many unique reports in Ibn Majah are sound, al-Busiri highlighted the status of the vast majority of its narrations and narrators al-Hadith wal-Muhaddithun+1. Later hadith scholars also noted that al-Busiri committed occasional oversights (awham) in his extractions and grading, which subsequent critics pointed out in their commentaries and footnotes Sunan Ibn Majah+1.

The book shares its main title with a separate, later work: Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti (d. 910 AH) authored a concise gloss on the entirety of Sunan Ibn Majah also titled Misbah al-Zujaja 'ala Sunan Ibn Majah Sunan Ibn Majah+1.

Manuscripts and Editions

Manuscripts of Misbah al-Zujaja survive in historical libraries, including a copy held at the Ahmadiyya Library in Aleppo Sunan Ibn Majah. Early commercial printings of the text were circulated in multiple volumes without critical editing and suffered from numerous clerical errors and misreadings Tadwin al-Sunna al-Nabawi…+1. Portions of the work have since been edited academically, including a doctoral dissertation on its first part submitted by Awad al-Shehri at the Islamic University of Madinah Tadwin al-Sunna al-Nabawi….