The ''Musannaf'' of Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanʿani ( ar, مصنف عبد الرزاق الصنعاني, translit=Muṣannaf ʿAbd al-Razzāq al-Sanʿānī) is an early

hadith Ḥadīth ( or ; ar, حديث, , , , , , , literally "talk" or "discourse") or Athar ( ar, أثر, , literally "remnant"/"effect") refers to what the majority of Muslims believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval ...

collection compiled by the eighth-century Yemeni scholar

ʽAbd al-Razzaq al-Sanʽani Abd al-Razzaq ibn Hammam ibn Nafi al-Sanani (, 744-827 CE, 126–211 AH), was an eighth-century Yemeni hadith scholar purportedly of Persian people, Persian descent who compiled a hadith collection known as the Musannaf of Abd al-Razzaq, ''Musanna ...

. As a collection of the ''

musannaf Musannaf hadīth collections are defined by their arrangement of content according to topic and constitute a major category within the class of all such works. Etymologically, ''musannaf'' is the passive particle of the Arabic verb ''sannafa'', ...

'' genre, it contains over 18,000 traditions arranged in topical order.

History

Compilation

Abd al-Razzaq al-Sanʿani likely compiled the ''musannaf'' in the second half of the second Hijri century after studying under

Ma'mar ibn Rashid Ma'mar ibn Rashid () was an 8th-century Persian hadith scholar. A Persian ''mawla'' ("freedman"), he is cited as an authority in all six of the canonical Sunni hadith collections. Life Ma'mar ibn Rashid was born in 96 AH/714 CE in Basra. He w ...

Ibn Jurayj Abd al-Malik ibn Abd al-Aziz ibn Jurayj ( ar, عبد الملك بن عبد العزيز بن جريج , translit=ʿAbd al-Malik ibn ʿAbd al-Azīz ibn Jurayj, 80 AH/699 CE - 150 AH/767 CE) was an eighth-century ''faqīh'', exegete and hadith tra ...

and

Sufyan al-Thawri Sufyan al-Thawri ( ar, أبو عبد الله سفيان بن سعيد بن مسروق الثوري, ʼAbu ʿAbd Allāh Sufyān ibn Saʻīd ibn Masrūq al-Thawrī ; 716–778) was a ''Tābi‘ al-Tābi‘īn'' Islamic scholar, jurist, and founder ...

during their respective visits to Yemen. In a sample of 3,810 traditions analysed by

Harald Motzki Harald Motzki (1948–2019) was a German-trained Islamic scholar who wrote on the transmission of hadith. He received his PhD in Islamic Studies in 1978 from the University of Bonn. He was Professor of Islamic Studies at Nijmegen University (Radbou ...

, the majority were largely transmitted from the three. As these three had compiled their own individual written hadith collections, al-Sanʿani's ''musannaf'' is considered to be a collation of older works. There are also relatively small numbers of traditions from

Sufyan ibn ʽUyaynah Abū Muḥammad Sufyān ibn ʽUyaynah ibn Maymūn al-Hilālī al-Kūfī ( ar, ابو محمد سفيان بن عيينة بن ميمون الهلالي الكوفي) (725 – ) was a prominent eighth-century Islamic religious scholar from Mecca. ...

Abu Hanifa Nuʿmān ibn Thābit ibn Zūṭā ibn Marzubān ( ar, نعمان بن ثابت بن زوطا بن مرزبان; –767), commonly known by his '' kunya'' Abū Ḥanīfa ( ar, أبو حنيفة), or reverently as Imam Abū Ḥanīfa by Sunni Mus ...

and

Malik ibn Anas Malik ibn Anas ( ar, مَالِك بن أَنَس, ‎ 711–795 CE / 93–179 AH), whose full name is Mālik bin Anas bin Mālik bin Abī ʿĀmir bin ʿAmr bin Al-Ḥārith bin Ghaymān bin Khuthayn bin ʿAmr bin Al-Ḥārith al-Aṣbaḥī ...

, among many others.

Textual history and reconstruction

The ''musannaf'' was considered lost until its manuscripts were rediscovered, edited and published by

Habib al-Rahman al-'Azmi Habib al-Rahman al-'Azmi was born in Maunath Bhanjan,Muhammad Asad, Islamic Culture, vol 69. p 60. Mau district (Uttar Pradesh), India. He completed the formal education from Mau in 1922 and began teaching. He is known for his scholarly work ...

in 1972.Paul Cobb, The Lineaments of Islam: Studies in Honor of Fred McGraw Donner, p. 147. 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 the ''musannaf'' in written form from his father, a student of Abd al-Razzaq, but ostensibly omitted him from the ''riwaya'' as he was awarded an ''

ijazah An ''ijazah'' ( ar, الإِجازَة, "permission", "authorization", "license"; plural: ''ijazahs'' or ''ijazat'') is a license authorizing its holder to transmit a certain text or subject, which is issued by someone already possessing such au ...

'' directly from Abd al-Razzaq after attending his lectures as a child. Abd al-Razzaq included his recension of Ma'mar ibn Rashid's ''Book of Expeditions'' () in the ''musannaf'', which has been reconstructed using a partial manuscript in Ishaq''s ''riwaya'' dated to 747.

Reliability

In an article published in the ''

Journal of Near Eastern Studies The ''Journal of Near Eastern Studies'' is an academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press, covering research on the ancient and medieval civilisations of the Near East, including their archaeology, art, history, literature, ling ...

,'' Motzki argues that the ''musannaf'' 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 the ''musannaf'' "cannot be regarded as completely truthful. This even Muslims themselves did not claim."

Publications

* Rāshid, Maʿmar ibn, et al. ''The Expeditions: An Early Biography of Muhammad''. Edited and translated by Sean Anthony, NYU Press, 2015. * al-Sanʿānī, ʿAbd al-Razzāq, ''al-Muṣannaf''. Edited by Habib al-Rahman al-'Azmi, Beirut, 1970-1972.

References