Mujam Ibn al-Muqri
- Author died
- 381 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Rushd, Riyadh, Sharikat al-Riyāḍ lil-Nashr wal-Tawzī‘
Mu'jam Ibn al-Muqri (The Dictionary of Ibn al-Muqri) is a 4th-century AH hadith dictionary compiled by the Isfahan hadith master Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali ibn Asim al-Isbahani, known as Ibn al-Muqri (285–381 AH / 898–991 CE) . Also referred to as al-Mu'jam al-kabir (The Great Dictionary) or Mu'jam shuyukh Ibn Zadhan, the work documents the scholars and teachers from whom the author received hadith during his extensive travels across the Islamic world .
Purpose and scope
Ibn al-Muqri gathered in the work the names of the hadith transmitters and scholars whom he met and heard from across multiple regions, including the Hijaz, Mecca, Medina, Egypt, al-Sham, and Iraq . It serves as an authoritative record of his shaykhs, verifying their identities, lineages, and geographical encounters .
Structure and method
The entries in the dictionary are arranged alphabetically according to the Arabic alphabet, beginning with teachers bearing the name Muhammad (al-Muhammadoon) . For each teacher, Ibn al-Muqri records the individual's full name, lineage (nasab), and attribution (nisba), as well as the specific location or locations where he met them . Under each biography, he narrates one or more prophetic hadiths through the chain of transmission (isnad) going through that teacher .
Transmission and editions
The work was transmitted from Ibn al-Muqri by several of his direct students, most notably Abu al-Fath Mansur ibn al-Husayn al-Ta'ni and Abu Tahir Ahmad ibn Mahmud al-Thaqafi . From al-Ta'ni, it was transmitted by Said ibn Abi al-Raja' al-Sayrafi .
The book has survived in manuscript form—including a copy in the Wali al-Din collection (MS 845 / F856)—and has been published in modern scholarly editions, such as the edition edited by Adil ibn Sa'd (published by Maktabat al-Rushd, 1419 AH) and an edition edited by Mas'ad al-Sa'dani and Muhammad Hasan Isma'il (published by Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya, 2003) .
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