Abu Musa al-Madini
Muntaha Raghabat al-Samiin fi Awali Ahadith al-Tabiin
- Author died
- 581 AH
- Editions
- Muntaha Raghabat al-Samiin fi Awali Ahadith al-Tabiin
Muntaha Raghabat al-Samiin fi Awali Ahadith al-Tabiin (The Ultimate Desire of Listeners Regarding the Elevated Hadiths of the Successors) is a hadith work by the Isfahani traditionist and hafiz Abu Musa al-Madini (d. 581 AH / 1185 CE), devoted to elevated chains of transmission (uluww) traced through the generation of the Followers (the Tabi'un) and their successors .
Composition and Transmission
The book was dictated by Abu Musa al-Madini during his teaching sessions in Isfahan . One recorded dictation session took place on Friday, 17 Muharram 559 AH, under the dictation assistance (istimlaʾ) of Shihab al-Din Muhammad ibn Ubayd ibn Muhammad ibn Ubayd Allah al-Muqriʾ, with his brother Abu Bakr and Afif Abu Ishaq Ibrahim ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Muqriʾ present .
A surviving manuscript fragment of the first part forms part of the Umariyya collections preserved at the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus (Majmuʿ 111, folios 236–258 / 226–257) . This copy bears an endowment (waqf) note by the traditionist Diya al-Din al-Maqdisi, transmitting it through a chain that includes al-Mizzi, Ibn al-Muhibb, and Ibn al-Balisi, transcribed in the hand of Yusuf ibn Abd al-Hadi . In some catalog listings and references, the work is titled with the addition wa-Atbaʿihim ("...and Their Followers") or appears as fi Awali Hadith al-Tabiin .
Content and Method
The collection compiles narrations transmitted through prominent or late-surviving Successors where Abu Musa obtained short (elevated) chains connecting him back to them . Each section focuses on an individual transmitter, providing both prophetic hadiths and historical reports (akhbar) associated with them, alongside biographical remarks and appraisals of their standing .
Among the figures treated in the extant part is Ibrahim ibn Abi Ablah al-Uqayli, regarding whom Abu Musa notes that he did not possess any elevated narration other than one specific report; he accompanies it with historical accounts detailing Ibrahim's interactions with the Umayyad caliphs Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik, al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik, and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, as well as with Umm al-Darda . The text also includes narrations transmitted by Abu Hudba Ibrahim ibn Hudba al-Farisi from Anas ibn Malik, as well as intermediate transmitters such as Hajjaj ibn Yusuf ibn Qutayba and Abd al-Rahman ibn Umar "Rustah" al-Isfahani .
Scholarly Reception
Later hadith critics and biographical encyclopedists frequently cited the work for biographical details, dates, and critical evaluations (jarh wa-ta'dil) of transmitters:
- Mughaltay cited the book in Ikmal Tahdhib al-Kamal on several occasions, including al-Madini's biographical notice on al-A'mash (stating that he was born around 60 AH, died between 145 and 148 AH at age 87 or 88, saw Anas ibn Malik, reportedly heard only three non-isnad matters from him, and transmitted a compilation of nearly sixty hadiths from him), as well as al-Madini's commentary on Hafs ibn Ubayd Allah ibn Anas and his evaluation of Salim ibn Abi Hafsah as being of disputed status (mukhtalaf fi halihi) .
- Sibt Ibn al-Ajami cited al-Madini's statement from the book in Nihayat al-Sul when discussing whether al-A'mash directly heard hadith from Anas ibn Malik .
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