| Author | ʽAbd al-Razzaq al-Sanʽani |
|---|---|
| Language | Arabic |
| Subjects | Hadith,fiqh,sira |
| Genre | Musannafhadith collection |
| Published | 8th century CE |
Original text | Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Sanʿānī at ArabicWikisource |
Musannaf Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanʿani (Arabic:مصنف عبد الرزاق الصنعاني,romanized: Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Sanʿānī) is an earlyhadith collection compiled by the Yemeni hadith scholarʽAbd al-Razzaq al-Sanʽani (744–827). As a collection of themusannaf genre, it contains over 18,000 traditions arranged in topical order.[1][2]
Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanʿani likely compiled themusannaf in the second half of the secondHijri century after studying underMa'mar ibn Rashid,Ibn Jurayj andSufyan al-Thawri during their respective visits to Yemen. In a sample of 3,810 traditions analysed byHarald Motzki, the majority were largely transmitted from the three. As these three had compiled their own individual written hadith collections, al-Sanʿani'smusannaf is considered to be a collation of older works. There are also relatively small numbers of traditions fromSufyan ibn ʽUyaynah,Abu Hanifa andMalik ibn Anas, among many others.[2]
Themusannaf was considered lost until its manuscripts were rediscovered, edited and published byHabib al-Rahman al-'Azmi in 1972.[3][4] The extant work is compiled from manuscripts hailing from different paths of transmission (riwayāt), although approximately 90% of the material can be traced back to a transmitter named Ishaq ibn Ibrahim al-Dabari. Ishaq likely received themusannaf in written form from his father, a student of Abd al-Razzaq, but ostensibly omitted him from theriwaya as he was awarded anijazah directly from Abd al-Razzaq after attending his lectures as a child.[2] Abd al-Razzaq included his recension of Ma'mar ibn Rashid'sBook of Expeditions (Arabic:كتاب المغازي,romanized: Kitāb al-Maghāzī) in themusannaf, which has been reconstructed using a partial manuscript in Ishaq'sriwaya dated to 747.[4]
In an article published in theJournal of Near Eastern Studies,Motzki argues that themusannaf is a source of authentic traditions from the first Hijri century, stating that the wholesale rejection of hadith literature "deprives the historical study of early Islam of an important and useful type of source." However, he added that themusannaf "cannot be regarded as completely truthful. This even Muslims themselves did not claim."[2]
