Masabih al-Sunnah

Manuscript of the Masabih al-Sunnah, Iraq or Iran, 1100AD. Khalili Collection of Islamic Art

Masabih al-Sunnah is a collection of hadith by the Persian Shafi'i scholar Abu Muhammad al-Husayn ibn Mas'ud ibn Muhammad al-Farra' al-Baghawi, from sometime before 516 H. An improved version of this work, Mishkat al-Masabih, has additional hadith, and was the work of another Persian traditionist Al-Tabrizi d. 741H.

Description

The collection is divided into a number of books which are divided into chapters which are further divided into two separate sections, one for Sahih ahadeeth as labeled by him ( from the collections of Bukhari and Muslim), the second section was for hasan ahadeeth according to his own labelling (from Al-Tirmidhi, Abu Dawud and others). Al-Tabrizi would alter certain ahadeeth positions in his own collection.

Features of the Collection

• Al-Baghawi omitted the isnads of these ahadeeth but kept the names of the Sahaba to whom the ahadith were traced.
• Part of his purpose, as explained in the introduction, was to enlighten Muslims about certain things of which the Quran is silent.
• Contains a grand total of 4434 ahadeeth.
• 2434 are from Sahih section:

325 Sahih Bukhari Only

875 Sahih Muslim Only

1234 from both Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim

• Al-Baghawi tells which ahadeeth from the second section of his work are gharib and da'if
• A number of commentaries were made on this collection. Tuhfat Al-Abrar, Al-Maysir and the commentary by Abd al-Qadir ibn 'Abd Allah al-Suhrawardi.

References

• Mishkat-ul-Masabih (a Summarised Version) Compiled By Wali-ud-din Bin Abdullah Al-Khatib Al-Umari Al-Tabrizi
• 1568 books obtained by Melvyl, the on line catalog of the University of California library system.