Mujam Mashayikh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Daqqaq
- Author died
- 516 AH
- Editions
- مكتبة الرشد للنشر والتوزيع
Mu‘jam Mashayikh Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Daqqaq (Arabic: معجم مشايخ محمد بن عبد الواحد الدقاق) is a biographical dictionary of teachers (mu‘jam al-shuyūkh) compiled by the Persian hadith scholar and traveler Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Daqqaq (d. 516 AH / 1122 CE) to record the teachers from whom he received and transmitted prophetic traditions.
Author and Context
The author, Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahid ibn Muhammad al-Asbahani al-Daqqaq, was born in the Jarwa'an quarter of Isfahan in the 430s AH. He began his formal study of hadith in 447 AH, learning from prominent authorities in Isfahan, such as Abd Allah ibn Shabib al-Dabbi, Ahmad ibn al-Fadl al-Batirqani, Said al-Ayyar, Abu al-Fadl Abd al-Rahman ibn Ahmad al-Razi, students of Ibn al-Muqri', and his principal teacher Abu al-Qasim Abd al-Rahman ibn Mandah, as well as Abu Isma'il al-Harawi (Shaykh al-Islam al-Ansari).
In 466 AH, al-Daqqaq embarked on extensive journeys in pursuit of hadith transmission across Khurasan and Transoxiana, hearing narrations in Nishapur, Tus, Sarakhs, Merv, Herat, Balkh, Gorgan, Bukhara, Samarkand, and Kirman, though he never reached Iraq. Al-Daqqaq recounted that he recorded traditions from more than one thousand shaykhs in his native Isfahan and over one thousand additional shaykhs during his travels, including six hundred in Herat and Nishapur alone. He died on 6 Shawwal 516 AH.
Content and Scope
The work belongs to the mashyakha and mu‘jam genre of hadith literature, in which scholars documented the biographical identities, chains of transmission, and sample narrations of the teachers they met and studied under. Drawing upon al-Daqqaq's extensive regional travels and his hearing from numerous teachers in Isfahan and the eastern Islamic world, the work serves as an important source for fifth- and early sixth-century AH hadith transmission networks across Iran and Central Asia.
Transmission and Publication
Manuscript copies of the dictionary survive in institutional repositories, including the Central Library in Mecca and the Manuscript Library in Kuwait (from the Zahiriyya Library collection).
The text was edited by Hatim ibn Arif al-Awni and published in a single volume by Maktabat al-Rushd in Riyadh in 1418 AH (1997 CE). In that edition, the work was published alongside two related short texts: Mashyakhat Ibn Abi al-Saqr and an audition session (Majlis Imlā’) by al-Daqqaq.
Answer updated