Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
Mujam al-Shaykha Maryam - Risala Jamiya
- Author died
- 852 AH
- Editions
- Muhsin Abd al-Ati Haridi Khalifah
Mu'jam al-Shaykha Maryam (The Biographical Dictionary of Shaykha Maryam) is a hadith biographical compilation prepared and extracted (takhrij) by the scholar Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (773–852 AH / 1372–1449 CE) . The work documents the teachers and transmissions of the female hadith scholar Sitt al-Qudah Maryam bint Abd al-Rahman al-Nablusiyya .
Subject and Attribution
The book is devoted to Sitt al-Qudah Maryam bint Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Nablusiyya (691–758 AH / 1292–1357 CE; another report gives her birth year as 721 AH), a Hanbali hadith transmitter (musnida) who was born and died in Nablus and transmitted hadith in Nablus, Damascus, and elsewhere . Ibn Hajar compiled this work to catalog her transmission networks, recording the teachers from whom she received hadiths through direct audition (sama') and through transmission licenses (ijaza) .
Structure and Contents
The work is organized in numbered fascicles (ajza'), including the first, second, fourth, seventh, eighth, tenth, and eleventh parts . Under each numbered entry, Ibn Hajar gives a biographical summary of the teacher—recording their birth, death, notable auditions, and scholarly activities—followed by representative hadith reports narrated with their chains of transmission (isnad) .
The teachers listed in the compilation include:
- Abu al-Fath Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Maydumi, who opens the collection as the first teacher .
- Ahmad ibn Abi Talib al-Hajjar (known as Ibn al-Shahna) .
- Ismail ibn Muhammad al-Khayyat .
- Asma bint Yaqub ibn Ahmad al-Muqri .
- Abd al-Rahim ibn Mahmud al-Khayyat .
- Ali ibn Hasan al-Armawi .
- Muhammad ibn Jabir al-Wadi Ashi .
- Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ahmad al-Maqdisi al-Khalili .
Manuscripts and Publication
A manuscript copy of the work preserved in Dar al-Kutub comprises 1,421 hadiths according to the catalog of photographed manuscripts . The text has been edited as an academic thesis and published in a single volume edited by Muhammad Uthman (Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya, Cairo, 2010) .
Answer updated