Tabaqat al-Muhaddithin bi-Asbahan wa al-Waridin Alayha
- Author died
- 369 AH
- Editions
- Mu’assasat al-Risālah
Tabaqat al-Muhaddithin bi-Asbahan wa al-Waridin Alayha (The Generations of Hadith Scholars in Isfahan and Those Who Arrived There) is a biographical hadith dictionary by the traditionist Abu al-Shaykh al-Asbahani (274–369 AH / 887–979 CE), documenting the lives, transmissions, and lineages of hadith transmitters connected to the city of Isfahan.
Scope and Purpose
In the opening of the work, the author designates it as a compilation of the names and generations of hadith scholars who entered Isfahan, spanning the Companions, the Successors, those present at the conquest of the city, and subsequent traditionists down to his own era. The stated objective is to document their lineages, full names, and recorded dates of death, alongside reporting hadiths transmitted by them, with particular attention to isolated or unique narrations where a single transmitter was sole in narrating a given report with its specific chain of transmission.
Structure and Contents
The book begins with an introductory section devoted to reports regarding the religious merits of Isfahan and the traditions concerning the supplication of the prophet Ibrahim for the city.
This is followed by an account of the Companions of the Prophet ﷺ who entered Isfahan, whom Abu al-Shaykh numbers at eighteen men:
- al-Hasan ibn Ali
- Abd Allah ibn al-Zubayr
- Salman al-Farsi
- Abu Musa al-Ash'ari and his son Musa
- Abd Allah ibn Amir
- Abd Allah ibn Budayl ibn Warqa and Budayl ibn Warqa
- Abd Allah ibn Abd Allah ibn Itban
- Khalid ibn Ghallab
- Mikhnaf ibn Sulaym
- al-Nabighah
- 'A'idh ibn 'Amr
- Humamah
- Mujashi' ibn Mas'ud
- A man from Banu Salm
- Abd Allah ibn Yazid al-Khatmi
- Rafi' ibn Khadij
The subsequent biographical entries are organized chronologically into generational classes (tabaqat). Under each biographical profile, Abu al-Shaykh provides the scholar's genealogical information, their hadith transmissions cited with full chains of transmission (isnad), and their death dates when available.
Transmission and Modern Editions
The surviving text of the work was preserved through a transmission lineage running from Abu al-Shaykh through Abu al-Qasim ibn Abi Bakr ibn Abi Ali al-Dhakwani, and transmitted via Abu al-Fadl Ja'far ibn Abd al-Wahid al-Thaqafi and Abu al-Mahasin Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Isfahbad, to Abu Tahir Ishaq ibn Ahmad al-Rashtinati and Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abi Zayd al-Karrani, who transmitted it to the Damascene traditionist Yusuf ibn Khalil al-Dimashqi.
The work has been edited by Abd al-Ghafur Abd al-Haqq Husayn al-Balushi and published by Mu'assasat al-Risalah.
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