Suluk Tarif al-Salaf fi Mashayikh Abd al-Haqq ibn Khalaf
- Author died
- 636 AH
- Editions
- al-Dār al-Athariyyah [within a collection containing six other parts]
Suluk Tariq al-Salaf fi Dhikr Mashayikh Abd al-Haqq ibn Khalaf (The Path of the Predecessors in Mentioning the Teachers of Abd al-Haqq ibn Khalaf) is a biographical hadith register (mashyakha) compiled by the Andalusian-born traditionist Ibn Yadas (Zaki al-Din Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Birzali, d. 636 AH / 1239 CE; also given as 638 AH). The work documents the teachers and transmissions of the centenarian scholar Abu Muhammad Abd al-Haqq ibn Khalaf.
Background and Composition
The book was compiled (takhrij) by al-Birzali for his elderly contemporary, Abu Muhammad Abd al-Haqq ibn Khalaf. In his youth, Abd al-Haqq had traveled widely through the Levant, Egypt, and Baghdad, accompanying leading traditionists and critical hadith scholars alongside his close study companion Salamah al-Haddad. In his later years, after outliving his peers and becoming confined to his home due to old age, al-Birzali assembled a record containing a hadith or report from each teacher whose audition he could verify. The compiled text was formally read back to Abd al-Haqq ibn Khalaf by al-Birzali on a Saturday during the middle ten days of Muharram 636 AH.
Structure and Contents
The work contains thirty-two numbered entries documenting prophetic traditions, narrations from the early generations, and pieces of poetry transmitted through Abd al-Haqq's teachers. For each shaykh, al-Birzali provides the full chain of transmission (isnad) and follows each prophetic narration with critical hadith cross-referencing (takhrij), comparing the chain to canonical compilations such as Sahih al-Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, and the Sunan collections of Abu Dawud, al-Nasa'i, and Ibn Majah, and identifying technical transmission concordances (muwafaqat) and substitute routes (badal).
Prominent scholars listed among Abd al-Haqq's authorities include:
- Abu al-Tamam Mahmud ibn Abd al-Mun'im al-Tamimi
- Abu Bakr Abd al-Rahman ibn Sultan al-Qurashi
- The Hanbali jurist Ibn Qudamah (Abu Muhammad Abd Allah ibn Ahmad al-Maqdisi)
- The hadith master Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi (Abu Muhammad Abd al-Ghani ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Maqdisi)
- Abu Tahir Barakat ibn Ibrahim al-Khushū'ī
At the end of the collection, Abd al-Haqq appends notes on additional teachers from whom he heard narrations during his travels to Baghdad in 565 AH and Mecca during the pilgrimage of 594 AH, as well as in Damascus under Judge Abu Sa'd Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Asrun, alongside general authorizations (ijazat) received from scholars in Baghdad and Isfahan.
Manuscripts and Publication
Manuscript copies of the work survive in Damascus at the Zahiriyya Library (notably MS 3754 / Majmu 17, preserving a transmission audition note dated 636 AH, and MS Majmu 2). The text was edited by Hamzah al-Jaza'iri and published in Jordan by al-Dar al-Athariyya in 2009 within a multi-treatise collection.
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