—meaning that no comprehensive work has yet been produced on it.

Al-Humaydī said, “I had intended to compile a book on the subject, but the Amīr instructed me, ‘After you have first arranged it by years, set it out alphabetically.’(1)

I say: The ḥadīth master Abū Yaʿqūb al-Qarrāb(2) had already assembled an extensive volume on the matter, yet he neither exhausted it nor even came close; likewise, Abū’l-Qāsim ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mandah al-Aṣbahānī produced a large, scattered compilation. Acting on the suggestion of the Amīr Abū Naṣr, I myself composed Tārīkh al-Islām(3), which—as far as I can judge—suffices for its intended purpose. Nevertheless, I lacked many chronicles I had heard of in Iraq, in the Maghrib, and at the Marāgha observatory, so I missed a sizeable portion.

Muḥammad ibn Ṭarkhān said, “Al-Humaydī then devoted himself to the two Ṣaḥīḥs until he died.”(4)

Abū ʿAbd Allāh al-Humaydī records in his Tārīkh(5): “Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr reported to us; ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Juhanī read the Musannaf of al-Nasāʾī to him, transmitting it from Ḥamzah al-Kinānī, who transmitted it from him.”

Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ said: “Muḥammad ibn Abī Naṣr al-Azdī al-Andalusī heard from Ibn Ḥazm long ago in Majorca. He was fiercely devoted to him, inclined toward his views, and was put to trial on that account…"