such as the Musannaf of ʿAbd al-Razzaq, the Musannaf of Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah, the Musannaf of Baqīʿ ibn Makhlad, the book of Muḥammad ibn Naṣr al-Marwazī, the major and minor compilations of Ibn al-Mundhir; then the Musannaf of Ḥammād ibn Salamah, the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Mālik ibn Anas, the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Ibn Abī Dhīb, the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Ibn Wahb, the Musannaf of Wakīʿ, the Musannaf of Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Firyābī, the Musannaf of Saʿīd ibn Manṣūr, the Masāʾil of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, the jurisprudence of Abū ʿUbayd, and the jurisprudence of Abū Thawr.

I said: Ibn Ḥazm was not altogether fair; the Muwaṭṭaʾ should in fact be cited immediately after the two Ṣaḥīḥs, together with the Sunan of Abū Dāwūd and al-Nasāʾī. Out of courtesy, however, he placed before it the collections consisting solely of Prophetic reports. Yet the Muwaṭṭaʾ enjoys a standing (1) in people’s souls and an awe in their hearts that nothing else can match.

The venerable scholar, the long-lived Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn (2), wrote to us from the city of Tunis in the year 700 AH, reporting from Abū ʾl-Qāsim Aḥmad ibn Yazīd the judge, from Shurayḥ ibn Muḥammad al-Ruʿaynī, that Abū Muḥammad ibn Ḥazm had written to him, saying:

“Yaḥyā ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Masʿūd informed us; Qāsim ibn Aṣbagh informed us; Ibrāhīm narrated to us…”