Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi
Risalat Turuq Hadith Man Kuntu Mawlahu Fa Ali Mawlahu
- Author died
- 748 AH
- Editions
- Manshūrāt Dalīl-i Mā
Risalat Turuq Hadith Man Kuntu Mawlahu Fa Ali Mawlahu (Treatise on the Transmission Routes of the Hadith "Whomever I am his Mawla, Ali is his Mawla") is a specialized hadith monograph composed by the Damascene scholar and historian Shams al-Din al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH / 1348 CE) . The work is dedicated to collecting, classifying, and critically evaluating the chains of transmission (turuq) of the famous Prophet's declaration delivered at Ghadir Khumm .
Background and Context
In classical hadith scholarship, authors compiled dedicated monographs focused on single, widely reported narrations to evaluate their authenticity and exhaust their transmission pathways . Before al-Dhahabi, earlier scholars had compiled extensive works on the Ghadir Khumm tradition, including Ibn Jarir al-Tabari in his Kitab al-Wilayah (compiling 75 routes) and Ibn 'Uqda (d. 332 AH) in his Kitab al-Muwalah, where he assembled around 150 routes . Al-Dhahabi compiled his own focused treatise on the routes of this hadith, similar to his monograph investigating the chains of the Hadith of the Bird (Hadith al-Tayr) .
Content and Method
The treatise documents the various paths through which the narration was transmitted from various Companions, examining the chains (asānīd) and the textual variants (mutūn) . Al-Dhahabi arranges the material by Companion, assessing each route's authenticity and explicitly distinguishing reliable narrations from defective ones :
- He established that the opening sentence of the hadith— من كنت مولاه فعلي مولاه ("Whomever I am his mawla, Ali is his mawla")—possesses good and sound chains (turuq jayyidah), reaching the rank of a widely transmitted (mutawātir) report in its core phrasing .
- He scrutinized weaker and unestablished chains attributed to certain Companions; for instance, he labeled the chapter on Umar ibn al-Khattab as unauthentic from him ('Umar lam yasihh 'anh) .
- Following the narration of Zayd ibn Thabit, al-Dhahabi pointed out that the hadith has numerous frail (wāhiyah) and dark routes—such as those traced through problematic narrators or fabricated sheets ascribed to Hassan ibn Thabit, Fatimah, or others—from which critical hadith scholars turn away, noting that what is authenticated suffices .
Modern Edition
The treatise has been published in a modern printed edition edited by 'Abd al-'Aziz al-Tabataba'i .
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