Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani
Tajil al-Manfaa
- Author died
- 852 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Bashāʾir
Ta'jil al-Manfa'a bi-Zawa'id Rijal al-A'imma al-Arba'a (Expediting Benefit Regarding the Additional Narrators of the Four Imams) is a specialized biographical dictionary of hadith transmitters compiled by the Shafi'i scholar Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (773–852 AH / 1372–1449 CE) . The work gathers the transmitters found in the primary hadith collections associated with the eponymous founders of the four Sunni schools of jurisprudence who were not already covered in standard biographical dictionaries of the Six Books .
Background and Purpose
Ibn Hajar authored the work after completing his major summaries of al-Mizzi's Tahdhib al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal, namely Tahdhib al-Tahdhib and Taqrib al-Tahdhib . He examined al-Tadhkira bi-Rijal al-Ashra by al-Husayni (d. 765 AH), in which al-Husayni had attempted to combine the narrators in Tahdhib al-Kamal with those in the collections of the four imams: the Muwatta' of Malik ibn Anas, the Musnad attributed to al-Shafi'i, the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and the Musnad of Abu Hanifa compiled by al-Husayn ibn Muhammad ibn Khusraw .
Finding that repeating transmitters already made famous in works on the Six Books created unnecessary bulk, Ibn Hajar isolated the additional transmitters (zawa'id) who were omitted from al-Mizzi's Tahdhib al-Kamal . Ibn Hajar stated that when joined with Tahdhib al-Tahdhib, Ta'jil al-Manfa'a effectively encompasses the vast majority of hadith transmitters across the early Islamic centuries up to the turn of the fourth century AH .
Scope and Sources
In compiling the dictionary, Ibn Hajar drew upon and evaluated several earlier compilations:
- Transmitters from al-Husayni's al-Tadhkira and his supplemental treatise al-Ikmal bi-Man fi Musnad Ahmad min al-Rijal mimman laysa fi Tahdhib al-Kamal .
- A supplementary treatise by his teacher Nur al-Din al-Haythami, who had collected narrators from Musnad Ahmad that al-Husayni had missed while extracting its hadith additions .
- Dhayl al-Kashif by Abu Zur'a ibn al-Iraqi .
Ibn Hajar also outlined plans and supplementary efforts to incorporate omitted narrators from related corpora, including al-Daraqutni's Ghara'ib Malik, al-Bayhaqi's Ma'rifat al-Sunan wa-l-Athar, Ahmad's Kitab al-Zuhd, and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani's Kitab al-Athar .
Methodology and Structure
The biographical entries are arranged alphabetically by narrator name. Ibn Hajar adopted a system of abbreviations (rumuz) to signal the source collection of each narrator :
- ك (Kaf) for Malik's al-Muwatta'
- ش (Shin) for Musnad al-Shafi'i
- فه (Fa'-Ha') for Ibn Khusraw's Musnad Abi Hanifa
- ا (Alif) for Musnad Ahmad
- عب (Ayn-Ba') for the additions of Abd Allah ibn Ahmad to his father's Musnad
- هب (Ha'-Ba') for transmitters added uniquely from al-Haythami's tract
In each biography, Ibn Hajar engaged critically with the determinations of al-Husayni, al-Haythami, and Abu Zur'a ibn al-Iraqi, correcting instances where they misidentified individuals or overlooked existing entries in Tahdhib al-Kamal . He distinguished his own assessments and additions of narrator criticism (al-jarh wa-l-ta'dil) by prefacing them with the phrase Qultu ("I say") . Ibn Hajar had previously gathered the errors of al-Husayni and his contemporaries into an independent monograph, parts of which were transcribed from him in Cairo by Ibn al-Jazari in 827 AH .
Editions
Ta'jil al-Manfa'a was first printed in Hyderabad (Deccan) in 1324 AH . Subsequent editions include:
- An edition edited by Abd Allah Hashim al-Madani, published by Dar al-Mahasin in 1386 AH .
- A critical edition in two volumes edited by Dr. Ikram Allah Imdad al-Haqq, published by Dar al-Basha'ir al-Islamiyya in Beirut (1416 AH / 1996 CE) .
- An edition edited by Ayman Salih Sha'ban, published by Dar al-Kutub al-Ilmiyya in Beirut (1416 AH / 1996 CE) .
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