This is the first critical edition of al-Quḍāʿī’s (d. 454/1062) Kitāb al-Shihāb. It relies on several early and valuable manuscripts, many used for the first time in modern scholarship.
Because Kitāb al-Shihāb became popular as a teaching text from the time of its first dissemination, an extraordinarily large number of valuable manuscripts survive. Also extant are several important manuscripts of the companion volume, Musnad al-Shihāb, which contains the chains of transmission for the Shihāb’s hadiths, and some early manuscripts of commentaries that include, cite, and comment on them.45 There is hardly a major manuscript library in the world that does not own multiple copies of Kitāb al-Shihāb and its companion texts.
In this edition, I rely primarily on four Egyptian manuscripts deriving directly from al-Quḍāʿī’s original autograph or from those used by his students in their study with him. The following are the primary manuscripts in chronological order:
| 1 | [ظ] Egyptian manuscript of Musnad al-Shihāb dated 449/1057, located in the Dār al-Kutub al-Ẓāhiriyyah in Damascus, catalog number Hadith 359. It was copied by an anonymous student of al-Quḍāʿī who read it with al-Quḍāʿī himself in the al-ʿAtīq (ʿAmr) Mosque in Fustat.46 This manuscript is approximately four-fifths complete.47 It contains eighty-six folios, divided into seven parts (juzʾ, pl. ajzāʾ).48 Presumably bound with one or more additional texts that go up to folio 133, the Musnad al-Shihāb begins at folio 134 and goes to 220, with some gaps. Written in an unvocalized, mostly undotted, and cramped naskh script, it is readable with difficulty. |
| 2 | [ا] Egyptian manuscript of Musnad al-Shihāb dated 453/1061, located in the Escorial Library in Madrid, catalog number Derenbourg [D] 752, Casiri [C] 748. It was copied under al-Quḍāʿī’s dictation and read with him in Fustat the year before his death by a student named Jumāhir ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Jumāhir al-Mālikī l-Andalusī.49 This is a partial manuscript, approximately a quarter of the whole, with thirty-four folios.50 The chains of transmission (isnāds) are written in casual Maghribī script, with the interspersed hadith texts written out more distinctively. The manuscript contains emendations in the margins. Some parts are smudged from water damage. It contains no vocalization, almost no dotting, and the text—especially the isnāds—are readable only with considerable difficulty. |
| 3 | [ك and ت] Egyptian manuscript containing both Kitāb al-Shihāb [ك] and Musnad al-Shihāb [ت], from the 6th/12th century, located in the Topkapi Palace Museum Library in Istanbul, catalog number Aḥmad III Hadith 370.51 This is the earliest extant manuscript of the stand-alone Kitāb al-Shihāb, and also the earliest full manuscript of Musnad al-Shihāb, and is thus a very valuable source. Most importantly, it has a short and distinguished lineage connecting it directly to al-Quḍāʿī: It was copied by a scholar named Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-Bāqī l-Madīnī (d. 598/1201) from the manuscript of one of al-Quḍāʿī’s students, the eminent Sufi shaykh and Arabic philologist Muḥammad ibn Barakāt (d. 520/1126), who copied it in 489/1096 from al-Quḍāʿī’s original autograph copy. Moreover, the copyist was himself al-Quḍāʿī’s student’s student, having obtained a certificate (ijāzah) to transmit Musnad al-Shihāb from the renowned chancery official Hibat Allāh ibn ʿAlī al-Būṣīrī (d. 598/1201), who obtained his certificate from Ibn Barakāt, who obtained his from al-Quḍāʿī. The manuscript contains a large number of colophons recording further study notices scattered on the margins and between sections throughout. It also contains a large number of comments, corrections, and further isnād notices in the margins, in different hands, some of them directly quoting al-Quḍāʿī. The manuscript is complete in 191 folios. It is written in clear, adequately spaced naskh script, and is fully dotted and vocalized. Folios 1–168 contain Musnad al-Shihāb, and folios 168–191 contain Kitāb al-Shihāb. |
| 4 | [م] Egyptian manuscript of Musnad al-Shihāb from the 6th/12th century, located in the Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyyah in Cairo, catalog number Hadith 452.52 This is a companion manuscript to MS [ت], with the same pedigree, thus apparently read in the same study sessions: it was written by an anonymous copyist, who read the text with al-Būṣīrī, who read it in 517/1123 in Fustat with Ibn Barakāt, who read it with al-Quḍāʿī.53 The beginning and end of each of its ten parts contain study notices by notable scholars.54 The manuscript also contains comments, corrections, and further isnād notices in the margins in different hands. The manuscript is complete, in 499 folios, with just a few folios missing or blotted out.55 It is written in a cursory but relatively clear naskh script, though unvocalized and mostly undotted. |
For comparative purposes, I have used the following eight early manuscripts from the 6th/12th to the 9th/15th centuries copied in several parts of the Islamic world, including Egypt, Yemen, Palestine, Spain, and North Africa (listed in chronological order):56
| 1 | Yemeni Zaydī manuscript of an anonymous commentary, Sharḥ al-Shihāb, dated 554/1159, located in the Grand Mosque (Jāmiʿ Kabīr) in Sanaa, part of the waqf collection of al-Khizānah al-Mutawakkiliyyah, catalog number 491/1167.57 The manuscript is written in cramped naskh script, readable with difficulty. It uses archaic orthography (e.g., صلوة and تطفي), with dots frequently missing and minimal vocalization, and features marginal corrections in the same hand. The text is well preserved and shows no lacunae; it adds seven hadiths not in the other manuscripts.58 The manuscript is in 238 folios; the first 227 comprise Sharḥ al-Shihāb, and the final 11 comprise two Zaydī jurisprudential texts. The commentary within this manuscript is denoted by Y in the endnotes. |
| 2 | Andalusian manuscript of Musnad al-Shihāb from ca. 6th/12th century, located in the Dār al-Kutub al-Ẓāhiriyyah in Damascus, catalog number Hadith 538.59 The name of the copyist is not mentioned, but Murcia in Spain is noted as its place of completion. This is an almost complete manuscript of 122 folios, divided in ten parts, with only the first hundred hadiths missing. It is written in stylized Maghribī script, somewhat cramped and readable with difficulty, and is dotted with some vocalization. It contains some emendations and extra isnāds in the margins.60 |
| 3 | Maghribī manuscript of Kitāb al-Shihāb dated 598/1201, located in the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul, catalog number 34 Sü-Aşir 69.61 The manuscript is complete in 62 folios, written in handsome Maghribī calligraphy, fully vocalized, with gold illumination and gold rondelles between maxims and parallel clauses. It is well preserved and has no lacunae, but a few sections are smudged and hard to read. This manuscript was used and corrected by scholars over the centuries, and includes in its margins numerous emendations, variants, and lexical and other interpretations written in different hands. It also contains the ownership marks of Muḥammad ibn Sulaymān (d. 1143/1730), a North African Mālikī Hadith scholar. |
| 4 | Manuscript of Sharḥ al-Shihāb dated 708/1308, located in the library of Princeton University, catalog number Islamic Manuscripts, Garrett no. 707H. The commentary’s full title is given as Sharḥ Shihāb al-akhbār fī l-ḥikam wa-l-amthāl wa-l-ādāb min al-aḥādīth al-nabawiyyah. Comprising twelve chapters, the manuscript is complete in 70 folios. It is written in clear naskh script and is fully dotted and partially vocalized. The names of the commentary’s author and of various owners of the manuscript appear to have been deliberately erased or blotted out. |
| 5 | Manuscript of Kitāb al-Shihāb dated 735/1335, located in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, catalog number 4433. No copyist name or place name is given. It is nearly complete, written in clear naskh script, fully dotted, and nearly wholly vocalized.62 The full manuscript is 145 folios, of which Kitāb al-Shihāb comprises the first 31. It is followed by an anonymous Sharḥ al-Shihāb, and a hadith collection by al-Ḥasan ibn ʿArafah al-ʿAbdī (d. 257/871). |
| 6 | North African manuscript of Kitāb al-Shihāb dated 798/1396, located in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, catalog number 5182. The manuscript is almost complete in 51 folios, written in large, handsome Maghribī calligraphy, fully vocalized, with gold illumination and gold rondelles between maxims and parallel clauses. The copyist is Abū l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Qabāʾilī;63 I could locate no place name, but the copyist’s geographical affiliation, al-Qabāʾilī, is the name of a tribe active in modern-day Libya and Algeria.64 |
| 7 | Palestinian manuscript of Kitāb al-Shihāb dated 877/1473, located in the Chester Beatty Library in Dublin, catalog number 3859. The copyist is Shihāb al-Dīn Abū l-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm ibn Makkiyyah al-Shāfiʿī l-Nābulusī (d. 907/1502). The full manuscript is in 126 folios, of which Kitāb al-Shihāb comprises the first 22; it is followed in this manuscript by three additional short treatises by ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (d. 40/661), Majd al-Mulk al-Afḍalī (d. 622/1225), and Ibn Makkiyyah, the manuscript’s copyist. The manuscript is written in clear naskh script, fully dotted and partially vocalized. A colophon on the final Shihāb folio says it has been read and corrected against a valuable and correct manuscript in 879/1475. There are two notices of ownership on the first and last folios, the second dated 1170/1756. The manuscript contains no emendations or marginal additions. |
| 8 | Manuscript of Kitāb al-Shihāb located in the library of Princeton University, catalog number Islamic MSS, Garrett no. 233Bq. The manuscript appears to have no evidence for dating, but according to Philip Hitti in the Garrett catalog, it dates from the 8th/14th century, and was acquired by Princeton from Beirut, Lebanon, in 1925.65 |
| 1 | al-Quḍāʿī. Musnad al-Shihāb. Edited by Ḥamdī ʿAbd al-Majīd al-Salafī. 2 vols. Beirut: Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 1985.66 |
| 2 | al-Quḍāʿī. Musnad al-Shihāb. Edited by Ḥāmid ʿAbd Allāh al-Maḥallawī. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah, 2011.67 |
| 1 | al-Rāwandī, Quṭb al-Dīn (d. 573/1178). Diyāʾ al-shihāb fī Sharḥ Shihāb al-Akhbār. Edited by Mahdī Sulaymānī l-Ashtiyānī. Qom: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 1431/2010. |
| 2 | al-Sijilmāsī,68 Muḥammad ibn Manṣūr (fl. 7th/13th century). Sharḥ Shihāb al-Quḍāʿī wa-Sharḥ gharībihī. 2 vols. Edited by ʿAlī Najmī. Beirut: Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2010. |
| 3 | al-Dūmī, Ibn Badrān al-Ḥanbalī. Sharḥ Kitāb al-Shihāb fī l-ḥikam wa-l-mawāʿiẓ wa-l-ādāb li-l-Imām al-Quḍāʿī. Edited by Nūr al-Dīn Ṭālib. 2 vols. Damascus and Beirut: Dār al-Nawādir, 2007. |
| 4 | al-Marāghī, Abū l-Wafāʾ Muṣṭafā. Al-Lubāb fī Sharḥ al-Shihāb. Cairo: al-Majlis al-Aʿlā li-l-Shuʾūn al-Islāmiyyah, 1970. |
For this edition, I mostly follow the rendering of the 6th/12th century Kitāb al-Shihāb Topkapi Egyptian manuscript [ك], privileging the readings of the text over the margins and marginalia, and checking it against Musnad al-Shihāb primary manuscripts [ظ], [ا], [ت], and [م]. In the footnotes, I list all significant variants along with the manuscripts in which they occur. For the sake of concision, I do not list the manuscript reading which has been used in my text. In the handful of places where—presumably due to scribal error—the Kitāb al-Shihāb manuscript [ك] differs from all the primary Musnad al-Shihāb manuscripts, I cite the Musnad al-Shihāb reading in the text, and give the [ك] variant in a footnote. Note that these variants occur most often in the gender, form, or tense of a verb, or in the use of a preposition, and more rarely in a noun or adjective. Overall, the rendering in this cluster of manuscripts is remarkably consonant, and I am confident that this edition, based on these source-proximate manuscripts, is very close to al-Quḍāʿī’s original.
The nature of variants in these manuscripts of Kitāb al-Shihāb and Musnad al-Shihāb is quite unusual, and is based on the special relationship between the two companion texts. For each hadith, the Musnad al-Shihāb manuscripts [ظ], [ا], [ت], and [م] provide one or more reports (along with the chain of transmission, isnād). The multiple reports frequently present variant readings. Based on these variants, the Kitāb al-Shihāb manuscript [ك] often presents two options for a word or phrase in a single hadith; one variant is usually noted in the text of the manuscript and another in the margin with the word “both” (maʿan) inscribed above or alongside it. A couple of hadiths are present in one but absent from the other.69
Additional features of this edition:
| • | Of the eight supplementary manuscripts from the 6th–9th/12th–15th centuries, six are of Kitāb al-Shihāb and one each is of Musnad al-Shihāb and Sharḥ al-Shihāb. I footnote supplementary manuscripts collectively in a few places in the edition, especially where Kitāb al-Shihāb is wholly different from Musnad al-Shihāb. I mostly do not footnote their individual variants.70 |
| • | The phrase riwāyah iḍāfiyyah in the footnotes indicates variants written in the cited MSS in addition to (rather than instead of) the one cited in the text of my edition. |
| • | In the sequencing of hadiths, I follow the order of the Kitāb al-Shihāb manuscript [ك]. To maintain concision, I do not footnote the few differing placements;71 other than some pattern groupings, the format of Kitāb al-Shihāb is a simple list without any substantial thematic impact on the ordering. |
| • | To make the text easier to navigate, I restart the numbering of hadiths in each chapter. For the most part, I preserve thematically or rhetorically connected multipart sayings as single units. I separate out unconnected parts of single hadith into individually numbered units (these are usually signaled in the Arabic text by an opening wāw conjunctive). Additionally, I cluster similarly patterned or similarly themed hadith, and add an extra line space between these clusters. |
| • | Some manuscripts of Kitāb al-Shihāb, Musnad al-Shihāb, and Sharḥ al-Shihāb, and all previous editions of Musnad al-Shihāb and Sharḥ al-Shihāb provide full—albeit sometimes differing—vocalization. I vocalize only those parts of the text that may not be obvious to an educated reader of classical Arabic. |
Translating the prophet Muḥammad’s hadiths, words revered by Muslims, poses several very real challenges to the translator. They are pithily succinct; they are buttressed by a multitude of contextual narratives, each supporting numerous interpretations; they are anchored in the beautifully cadenced rhythms of early Arabic; they draw on a vivid palette of cosmic and desert imagery; and the words and tempos are often specific to the linguistic milieu of seventh-century Arabia. A translator can only fall short, but I have done my best to produce a clear English rendering that preserves the substantive spirit and rhetorical texture of the original words.
Keeping these larger issues in mind—and in keeping with my approach in translating al-Quḍāʿī’s collection of ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib’s sayings—I strive for sentence-to-sentence translation, rather than word-to-word correspondence, as I find it serves the translation better to convey the essence of what is being said. Where appropriate, I have
The presence of specialized terminology has been a particular challenge, since certain differences in language arise not just from differences in the signifier words, but more deeply, from differences in the concepts signified. To this end, I have translated selected technical religious terms differently from their conventional English rendering. For example, I often translate “Islam” as “commitment to God” (rather than “submission” to him); taqwā as “piety” or “being conscious of God” (rather than “fear of God”); and zuhd as “rejection of worldliness” or “indifference to the world” (rather than “rejection of the world” or “asceticism”).
This alphabetical list of sigla—used to denote the primary manuscripts cited in the edition’s footnotes, all of Egyptian provenance—is provided for quick reference; details have been supplied earlier.
| ا | Musnad al-Shihāb, 453/1061, Escorial, Madrid, cat. no. Derenbourg [D] 752, Casiri [C] 748. |
| ت | Musnad al-Shihāb, 6th/12th c., Topkapi, Istanbul, cat. no. Aḥmad III Hadith 370. |
| ظ | Musnad al-Shihāb, 449/1057, Dār al-Kutub al-Ẓāhiriyyah, Damascus, cat. no. Hadith 359. |
| ك | Kitāb al-Shihāb, 6th/12th c., Topkapi, Istanbul, cat. no. Aḥmad III Hadith 370. |
| م | Musnad al-Shihāb, 6th/12th c., Dār al Kutub al-Miṣriyyah, Cairo, cat. no. Hadith 452. |