Musnad al-Muwatta lil-Jawhari
- Author died
- 381 AH
- Editions
- دار الغرب الإسلامي
Musnad al-Muwatta (Musnad al-Muwatta lil-Jawhari) is a comparative hadith work by the Egyptian Maliki traditionist Abu al-Qasim al-Jawhari (d. 381 AH / 991 CE; another report gives 385 AH), compiling and analyzing the supported (musnad) narrations contained in Malik ibn Anas's al-Muwatta.
Scope and Methodology
The work encompasses 666 hadiths, representing the complete corpus of musnad traditions that reached the author from Malik's al-Muwatta. To assemble the text, al-Jawhari examined and collated twelve distinct transmissions (riwayat) of the Muwatta, namely those of:
- Abd Allah ibn Wahb
- Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Qasim
- Abd Allah ibn Maslama al-Qa'nabi
- Abd Allah ibn Yusuf al-Tinnisi
- Ma'n ibn Isa
- Sa'id ibn Ufayr
- Yahya ibn Abd Allah ibn Bukayr
- Abu Mus'ab al-Zuhri
- Mus'ab ibn Abd Allah al-Zubayri
- Muhammad ibn al-Mubarak al-Suri
- Sulayman ibn Burd
- Yahya ibn Yahya al-Andalusi
Al-Jawhari structured the compilation around the textual and chain variants among these transmissions, recording instances where narrators differed over whether a report was connected (musnad) or hurrying/interrupted (mursal), noting omissions and additions (al-hadhf wa-al-idafah), and documenting phrasing differences (ikhtilaf al-alfaz). He also incorporated hidden defects (ilal), lexical explanations of rare words (idah al-lughah), biographical notes on transmitters (tarajim al-rijal), and identified Malik's own teachers (mashyakhat Malik), a thoroughness praised by al-Dhahabi. Alongside this book, al-Jawhari authored a separate companion work devoted to Malik's musnad traditions outside the Muwatta.
Transmission and Reception
The book was read back to al-Jawhari in Egypt in 377 AH by Abu al-Abbas Ahmad ibn Sa'id ibn Nafis al-Muqri, and transmitted by students including Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn al-Hasan ibn Fahd al-Bazzaz and Abu Bakr Abd Allah ibn Husayn ibn Uqqal al-Qurashi. It circulated widely through transmitters such as Ja'far ibn Ismail al-Hamdani and Abu al-Tahir al-Silafi, and was recorded by Ibn Khayr al-Ishbili in his bibliographical catalogue (Fihrist).
Scholars cited the work under varying titles: Abu al-Abbas al-Dani utilized it in al-Ima' ila Atraf Ahadith al-Muwatta, citing it as Musnad Hadith al-Muwatta and al-Musnad; Ibn Atiyya referred to it as Musnad Hadith Malik; while al-Qadi Iyad, Ibn Farhun, Muhammad ibn Abd al-Baqi al-Zurqani, and al-Rudani cited it as Musnad al-Muwatta.
Preservation and Print Editions
A manuscript of the work is preserved in the Maktabat al-Haram al-Makki (MS 377). It was edited by Lutfi ibn Muhammad al-Saghir and Taha ibn Ali Busarih and published by Dar al-Gharb al-Islami in 1997.
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