This work is primarily based on al-Mulakhkhaṣ by ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Balyāwī.
For Qurʾān translation I have primarily relied on the translation done by Ṣaḥīḥ International. However, in certain places I have also relied on the translation of Muftī Taqī Usmānī as well as the translation of Dr. Mustafa Khattab in The Clear Qurʾān.
For ḥadīth translation I have primarily relied on that provided by sunnah.com; however, I have made slight changes on the occasional circumstance, where I feel the text flows better, or where the meaning of the ḥadīth is portrayed in a clearer manner.
Praise be to Allāh for His favour, and may peace and blessings be upon His Messenger, who calls to His good pleasure, and upon his family and his Companions, who attained success by following his guidance and exposition.
To proceed: this is the second edition of my treatise al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī Uṣūl al-Ḥadīth, which I present in fresh form, with further verification and annotation, and a measure of revision. In this edition I have added examples and corroborating witnesses that will help students understand the issues it discusses.
I have also added an article giving a brief overview of the history of this science, its origin and its codification.
I ask Allāh, the Exalted, to make it purely for His Noble Countenance and a means for reviving the sciences of the Sunnah and the dīn, kindling people's desire for them, moving them to act upon them and spreading them until the Day of Judgement.
And may Allāh send peace and blessings upon His Noble Messenger; and our final prayer is: all praise belongs to Allāh, Lord of all the worlds.
Written by:
ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm, may he be forgiven.
16 Rajab 1440 AH
By the pen of his eminence Shaykh al-Sayyid Muḥammad ʿĀqil al-Sahāranpūrī
Shaykh al-Ḥadīth at Jāmiʿat Maẓāhir ʿUlūm, Sahāranpūr
All praise belongs to Allāh alone, and may peace and blessings be upon him after whom there is no prophet.
To proceed: this blessed booklet now before us pertains to the science of muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth. It is the fruit of unremitting work and sustained study of the books of ḥadīth by one of the members of the ḥadīth department at our university, Maẓāhir ʿUlūm, Sahāranpūr, and one of its graduates: al-Ustādh ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm al-Balyāwī, son of the daʿwa-shaykh Mawlānā ʿUbayd Allāh al-Balyāwī, may Allāh have mercy upon him.
Since the book is currently being printed, I have only been able to review some of its pages. Even so, I hold its author's scholarly and critical ability in high esteem, and I hope that, by Allāh's leave and grace, this work will be of much benefit to students of the noble ḥadīth.
I ask Allāh, Glorified is He, to reward him with the best of recompense, and to honour his effort with acceptance. And all praise belongs to Allāh, Lord of all the worlds.
Written by Muḥammad ʿĀqil al-Sahāranpūrī
10 Shaʿbān 1440 AH
By the pen of his eminence Shaykh al-Sayyid Muḥammad Salmān al-Sahāranpūrī
Rector of Jāmiʿat Maẓāhir ʿUlūm, Sahāranpūr
We praise Him, and we send peace and blessings upon His Noble Messenger.
To proceed: the science of ḥadīth is noble in its origin and lofty in its lineage. It is also wide in scope and varied in its branches, qualities that set it apart among the Islamic sciences.
The branches through which the muḥaddithūn have served this noble science, by guarding it from impurities and doubts and by tracing narrations through chains of transmission back to trustworthy narrators, number ninety or more. Together they are known as uṣūl al-ḥadīth or muṣṭalaḥāt al-ḥadīth. Hundreds of works have been composed on this subject from the time of Imām al-Shāfiʿī, may Allāh have mercy upon him, down to our own day, some of them primary texts and some commentaries, some in verse and some in prose, some abridged and some at length, taking up its various aspects and the range of its topics.
This subject holds an important place in the curriculum of the Department of Specialisation in the noble ḥadīth and its sciences at our university. Several works in this blessed branch are taught here by accomplished teachers, among them al-Ustādh ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm ibn ʿUbayd Allāh al-Balyāwī, al-Kāshifī then al-Maẓāhirī, may Allāh, the Exalted, preserve him and grant him well-being, who has been entrusted with teaching Mishkāt al-Maṣābīḥ, together with the Muqaddima prefixed to it, and Sharḥ Nukhbat al-Fikr, among a number of other books, for a good while now.
In the course of teaching the subject he became aware of two important matters:
The first:
There are many issues on which the scholars of uṣūl have differed sharply, and their statements often contain contradictions and incompatibilities that leave beginning students confused and unclear when it comes to picking out the sounder and better view from what is not. The need therefore made itself felt for a work that avoids length and elaboration and that, in verified and settled terms, points the beginner to what has been selected from among them and is given preference by the scholars.
The second:
Most of the works composed in muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth are by Shāfiʿīs, and so they reflect the Shāfiʿī madhhab on accepting and rejecting ḥadīth and on judging authenticity and weakness, whereas the Ḥanafī student needs to acquaint himself with the positions the Ḥanafīs have taken on it, so that his mind is not put under strain when he comes to apply his own madhhab.
These two matters made plain the need for this concise summary. We ask Allāh, the Exalted, to honour it with His acceptance, to make it a benefit for students and researchers and to make it a treasured store for its author, for He is the One who governs all of that. And our final prayer is: all praise belongs to Allāh, Lord of all the worlds.
Written by Muḥammad Salmān al-Sahāranpūrī
4 Shaʿbān 1440 AH
We praise Allāh for His enabling grace, and we ask Him to guide us along His path and to inspire us in realising the truth; and we send peace and blessings upon His Messenger, his family and his Companions.
To proceed: by the bounty and generosity of Allāh towards me, He has for some time occupied me with the service of the Prophetic ḥadīth, which gave me the opportunity to teach a number of works in the disciplines of the noble ḥadīth at Jāmiʿat Maẓāhir ʿUlūm, Sahāranpūr. There I had the pleasure of teaching, for many years, Tadrīb al-Rāwī, Qafw al-Athar, the Muqaddima of Mishkāt al-Maṣābīḥ1 and Sharḥ Nukhbat al-Fikr; and I studied most of the works on uṣūl al-ḥadīth in order to resolve the subtle discussions and intricate issues that arise in them. By Allāh's favour, many doubts were cleared up for me and many points came to light, which I shared with students in lessons as the need arose.
One thing that became apparent to me through this reading and study is that the conciseness of the works of the later scholars in general, and of Sharḥ Nukhbat al-Fikr in particular, has produced complications which the commentators have struggled to unravel and which, in certain places, they have failed to resolve in a convincing and satisfying manner.
The principal reason for this is that many of the weaker positions, or positions held by only some of the muḥaddithūn, have been treated as if there were consensus upon them or as if they were the position of the majority. Researchers and students then try to resolve the matter within the bounds of that position, and the result is not a satisfying or convincing resolution.
There is another important reason: that no distinction is drawn between the terminology of the mutaqaddimūn and that of the mutaʾakhkhirūn, even though much of what the mutaʾakhkhirūn settled on as conventional usage was not recognised by the mutaqaddimūn. Trying to understand the statements of the mutaqaddimūn while restricting oneself to the terminology of the mutaʾakhkhirūn can cause the truth to slip past the student.
Another source of difficulty is that, at times, eminent scholars say things that are far removed from reality, in line with the saying: "Understanding is an accident that comes upon a person and then passes away." Such statements are then passed from tongue to tongue, and the eloquence and dignity of the speaker make them sound impressive. Thus the famous statement, "The earlier ones have left nothing for the later ones,"2 has done more harm to knowledge than the well-known saying, "From every person's words something may be taken and something rejected, except the words of the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ." By contrast, Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī's saying, "How much have the earlier ones left for the later ones!" stirs lofty determination in every student and researcher.
For a long time some of the students had been pressing me to publish these ḥadīth studies, but I had not been able to summon the resolve. This year, however, I gathered the resolve for it at the urging of the two virtuous brothers Khalīd and Aḥmad ʿAli, who belong to a family whose requests I cannot refuse, given their many favours to me. Even so, no clear way forward appeared.
While I was reflecting on this, Allāh opened the way for it: some of the students said to me, "We wish to memorise the principles of ḥadīth, so dictate them to us concisely in the light of what you have verified, so that we may commit them to memory little by little." I gladly accepted their request.
I drew them from various works in the discipline: keeping the text in full where I found it to be the most concise, comprehensive and accurate; making slight changes where it seemed to need adjustment; or using wording of my own. I dictated the entries to the students one by one, and they memorised them and recited them back to me from memory. This proved to be the occasion for the composition of this concise treatise.
It then occurred to me that if this treatise were published, with a few necessary footnotes, under the title al-Mulakhkhaṣ fī Uṣūl al-Ḥadīth, the students' wish would be fulfilled and it would be a treasured store for me in the Hereafter; and it is no hard matter for Allāh to make it of benefit to someone and to make it a treasured store for me in the Hereafter.
As for the verifications in light of which this concise treatise has been arranged, I shall, by the will of Allāh the Exalted, seek to publish them as well at a later time.
At the outset I had wanted the treatise to be even more concise; however, after consulting his eminence Shaykh al-Sayyid Muḥammad ʿĀqil, may Allāh preserve him, and my sincere companions, helpful additions were made to both the matn and the footnotes, so that matters might be clearer and the reader might not fall into confusion or difficulty.
To close, I see it as my duty to thank my noble brother, Shaykh Muḥammad Muʿāwiya Saʿdī al-Kurkhabūrī, professor in the Department of Specialisation in the noble ḥadīth, and my sister's son and study-companion, Shaykh Iṣṭifāʾ al-Ḥasan al-Kāndhlawī, professor at Dār al-ʿUlūm Nadwat al-ʿUlamāʾ in Lucknow, who both contributed to the composition of this book through their valuable insights.
I likewise thank my brother Ẓahīr al-Hudā Nūr al-Qāsimī, professor at Jāmiʿat Maẓāhir ʿUlūm, and the student Abū Umāma al-Qāsimī, who assisted me in composing this work and correcting its errors through their painstaking, sincere and gracious efforts. May Allāh, the Exalted, in a manner befitting His majesty, reward all who assisted me in this composition with the best of recompense.
May Allāh, the Exalted, accept this humble effort from me, and reward, on my behalf, my parents and all my teachers with the best of recompense, especially my tender mother, who has recently departed to the neighbourhood of the mercy of her Lord, the Most High, the All-Powerful. May Allāh enfold her in His forgiveness, pour down upon her the showers of His mercy and good pleasure, and grant her dwelling in the vastness of His Gardens.
Written by:
ʿAbd al-ʿAẓīm, may he be forgiven.
12 Rajab 1440 AH
This is in fact part of the introduction to his commentary, Lamʿāt al-Tanqīḥ fī Sharḥ Mishkāt al-Maṣābīḥ, and not an introduction to Mishkāt al-Maṣābīḥ itself; even so, it has been printed alongside it for a very long time. ↩
As Yāqūt al-Ḥamawī mentions in Muʿjam al-Buldān (1/25), citing Abū ʿUthmān. ↩
A survey of the foundational works on ḥadīth terminology from al-Rāmahurmuzī to Ibn al-Ḥanbalī's Qafw al-Athar, and the author's reasons for composing al-Mulakhkhaṣ
How verification of the Sunnah began in the era of the senior ṣaḥābah and developed into the era of codification and taḥqīq through the third century and beyond.
Qurʾānic verses and prophetic narrations establishing the authority of ḥadīth and the need to verify the Sunnah, with Ibn ʿAdiyy on scrutinising its transmission.
The threefold division of ḥadīth study: ʿilm riwāyat al-ḥadīth, ʿilm dirāyat al-ḥadīth and ʿilm uṣūl al-ḥadīth (muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth), as set out in the opening of al-Mulakhkhaṣ.
