Sifat al-Janna - al-Diya al-Maqdisi - al-Musnada - j. 3
- Author died
- 643 AH
- Editions
- King Saud University
Sifat al-Janna (The Description of Paradise) is a hadith treatise compiled with connected chains of transmission (musnad) by the Hanbali traditionist Diya al-Din al-Maqdisi (567–643 AH / 1172–1245 CE), dedicated to prophetic reports and narrations describing Paradise and its delights .
Authorship and Scope
The attribution of the book to Diya al-Din al-Maqdisi is firmly established by audition certificates (samaʿat) preserved on its manuscript, the inclusion of his known teachers in its chains of narration, and the correspondence of its narrations with those in his major compilation al-Ahadith al-Mukhtara (The Selected Hadiths) . Classical biographers and scholars, including al-Dhahabi, Ibn Kathir, and Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, explicitly credited the work to him .
Sources differ regarding the total number of parts (ajza') comprising the original work:
- Al-Dhahabi in Siyar Aʿlam al-Nubala' and Tarikh al-Islam, as well as Ibn Rajab in Dhayl Tabaqat al-Hanabila, stated that the book consists of three parts .
- An audition note found on the manuscript indicates that the complete book spanned five parts .
Manuscript and Structure
Only the third part (al-Juzʾ al-Thalith) of the original musnad text is known to have survived in manuscript form . It is preserved in the al-Zahiriyya Library in Damascus within composite manuscript (majmuʿ) no. 103 (folios 77–91), consisting of fifteen folios . Carl Brockelmann also noted a manuscript copy located in the Vatican Library (MS Borg. ar. 1459/5) .
The title page of the Zahiriyya manuscript bears the title: "The Third Part of the Book Sifat al-Janna, authored by the Shaykh, the Imam, the Learned, the Hafiz Abu ʿAbd Allah Muhammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wahid ibn ʿAbd al-Rahman al-Maqdisi" . Audition records on the manuscript document that this part was read back to the author in 626 AH . The text of the third part concludes with the scribal note: "End of the third part of Sifat al-Janna, and it is followed by: Mention of the Increase (al-Ziyada) in Paradise" .
Scholarly Reception
The work was widely utilized and cited by later scholars. Ibn Kathir frequently quoted hadiths and critical transmission evaluations from it in his Quranic exegesis (Tafsir Ibn Kathir) and his chronicle al-Bidaya wa-l-Nihaya . Ibn al-Qayyim drew upon it extensively in Hadi al-Arwah ila Bilad al-Afrah and Iʿlam al-Muwaqqiʿin, citing Diya al-Din's specific authentications . The book was also transmitted through formal isnads by later traditionists, such as Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Rudani in Silat al-Khalaf bi-Mawsul al-Salaf .
Answer updated