Ujala al-Raghib al-Mutamanni fi Takhrij Kitab Amal al-Yawm wa al-Layla li-Ibn al-Sunni
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- Dār Ibn Ḥazm lil-Ṭibā‘ah wa-al-Nashr wa-al-Tawzī‘
Ujala al-Raghib al-Mutamanni fi Takhrij Kitab Amal al-Yawm wa al-Layla li-Ibn al-Sunni (The Eager Seeker's Prompt Aid in the Hadith Extraction of Ibn al-Sunni's "Actions of Day and Night") is a critical edition and hadith verification work by Salim al-Hilali on the classic supplication manual compiled by Ibn al-Sunni (d. 364 AH).
Purpose and Scope
The work was undertaken to establish a verified text of Ibn al-Sunni's 'Amal al-Yawm wa-al-Layla—a major source for daily invocations and prophetic remembrances arranged according to daily routines—while systematically verifying (takhrij), authenticating, and grading its chains of narration (asānīd) and traditions (athār). Hilali completed the composition of his notes in multiple sessions, concluding on the morning of Monday, 12 Rajab 1421 AH, in his home library in Amman, Jordan.
Textual Basis and Methodology
To establish the text, Hilali relied on two manuscripts and one earlier printed edition:
- The German Manuscript (designated with the siglum Lām): Preserved at the Center for Manuscripts and Heritage in Kuwait (obtained in 1985 CE through Ibrahim al-Shaybani). Comprising 99 folios (198 pages, 19 lines per page), it was copied in clear Naskh script by 'Ubayd ibn Humaydan in Muharram 835 AH and collated against several copies. Hilali adopted it as his primary base text on account of its antiquity, clarity, and completeness, while preserving its marginal glosses on unusual hadith vocabulary (gharib).
- The Indian Manuscript (designated with the siglum Hā'): Held at the Khuda Bakhsh Oriental Public Library in Patna, Bihar, India, and copied by Mirza Muhammad al-Bihari on 22 Muharram 1295 AH.
- The Hyderabad Printed Edition (designated with the siglum Mīm): Issued by the Da'irat al-Ma'arif al-'Uthmaniyyah press in Hyderabad, Deccan, in 1358 AH, under the editorial supervision of Abd al-Rahman al-Mu'allimi.
In his critical apparatus, Hilali recorded substantial textual variations while omitting repetitive differences in formulaic phrases of praise and transmission. He systematically vocalized and cross-referenced Quranic verses with chapter and verse numbers, detailed the transmission paths of the hadiths across early collections, analyzed individual narrators in the chains, and graded the authenticity of each report using the rules of hadith methodology.
Structure and Publication
The work concludes with twelve specialized analytical indices:
- Quranic verses
- Prophetic hadiths
- Musnads of the Companions
- Non-prophetic narrations (āthār)
- Ibn al-Sunni's direct teachers and their transmissions
- Narrators evaluated with biographical criticism (al-jarḥ wa-al-taʿdīl)
- Poetic verses
- Geographical locations and place names
- Tribes and sects
- Unusual hadith vocabulary (gharīb al-ḥadīth)
- Bibliography and cited sources
- Table of contents and topics
Ujala al-Raghib al-Mutamanni was published in Beirut by Dar Ibn Hazm in two volumes (1st edition, 1422 AH / 2001 CE).
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