Takhrij al-Ahadith al-Marfuah al-Musnadah fi Kitab al-Tarikh al-Kabir
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- Maktabat al-Rushd lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
Takhrij al-Ahadith al-Marfuah al-Musnadah fi Kitab al-Tarikh al-Kabir (Graduation of the Raised and Connected Hadiths in the Book al-Tarikh al-Kabir) is a specialized hadith study by Muhammad ibn Abd al-Karim ibn Ubayd dedicated to extracting, documenting (takhrij), and critically evaluating all connected prophetic traditions (al-ahadith al-marfu'ah al-musnadah) recorded by al-Bukhari in his biographical work al-Tarikh al-Kabir (The Great History) .
Purpose and Scope
The author undertook the work to analyze the extensive hadith material embedded across the biographical entries of al-Tarikh al-Kabir, building upon his prior research experience in isnad criticism and hadith graduation during his master's thesis on the exegesis of Surah Yusuf in the Tafsir of Ibn Abi Hatim . The scope was strictly limited to narrations where al-Bukhari provided a fully connected chain of transmission (musnad) tracing back directly from his own teachers to the Prophet ﷺ, including Companions whose status as Companions is debated, as well as narrations whose surface form appeared raised or connected but were critically established as non-prophetic (mawquf) or hurried (mursal) .
The extraction process involved navigating al-Bukhari's varied citation practices, such as providing only partial chains before the text, splitting isnads, or citing chains with omitted texts . The study excluded 4,082 raised hadiths transmitted by al-Bukhari from his teachers using the suspended formula "he said" (qala), as well as 165 reports that appeared in an anomalous base copy with the formula "he said to me" (qala li) but were proven across collated manuscripts to be transmitted merely as qala .
Structure
The work opens with an introductory introductory study divided into six chapters followed by the main corpus of hadith graduation :
- Chapter One: Aspects of al-Bukhari's biography, factors shaping his scholarship, praise from his teachers and peers, his character, and the controversy concerning the pronunciation of the Quran (mas'alat al-lafz) .
- Chapter Two: A study of al-Bukhari's compositions and resolutions of issues surrounding certain works .
- Chapter Three: An evaluation of the published edition of al-Tarikh al-Kabir and a survey of its extant manuscripts .
- Chapter Four: The primary sources relied upon by al-Bukhari for the raised connected narrations in his work .
- Chapter Five: Al-Bukhari's direct teachers in these narrations, organized alphabetically with narration counts, along with teachers he narrated from directly and through intermediaries, teachers whose lineages were omitted, and teachers whom al-Bukhari did not provide separate biographies for in al-Tarikh al-Kabir .
- Chapter Six: An analysis of al-Bukhari's overarching methodology in al-Tarikh al-Kabir .
The book concludes with seven comprehensive indexes covering Quranic verses, prophetic hadiths arranged alphabetically, hadiths organized by legal chapters, narrators and notable figures, geographical locations, research references, and subjects .
Methodology
For narrator criticism, the author followed the twelve-tier classification scheme of Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's Taqrib al-Tahdhib:
- Ranks 2 and 3 were graded as authentic (sahih) .
- Rank 4 was graded as fair (hasan) .
- Ranks 5 through 9 were graded as weak (da'if) unless supported by corroborating transmissions, in which case they were upgraded to fair due to corroboration (hasan li-ghayrih) .
- Lower tiers were deemed severely weak even if corroborated .
For narrators absent from Taqrib al-Tahdhib, senior Successors (kibar al-tabi'in) with no recorded disparagement who were typically listed in Ibn Hibban's al-Thiqat were graded as fair; figures regarding whom al-Bukhari or Ibn Abi Hatim remained silent were suspended until corroboration was found; and untraceable narrators were withheld from judgement rather than labeled unknown (majhul) in anticipation of future biographical documentation . The author also expanded on hidden transmission defects ('ilal), discussed lexical obscurities (gharib), and identified geographic place names .
Statistical Findings
The study evaluated a total of 1,127 raised and connected narrations extracted from al-Tarikh al-Kabir, yielding the following authenticity breakdown :
- Authentic (sahih): 210 hadiths .
- Fair (hasan): 370 hadiths .
- Weak and feeble (da'if wa wahi): 399 hadiths .
- Suspended / untraced narrators (maskut 'anh): 147 hadiths .
- Fabricated (mawdu'): 1 hadith .
Publication
The work was published in its first edition by Maktabat al-Rushd in Riyadh in 1420 AH (1999 CE) .
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