so widespread on people’s tongues that it is virtually as well-attested as a mutawātir report.
Al-Muʾtaman al-Sāji said: “I heard ʿAbd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Anṣārī say, ‘It is pronounced with a ḍammah on the tāʾ (Turmidh).’” The ḥāfiẓ Abū al-Fatḥ ibn al-Yaʿmarī (1) likewise transmitted that it may also be said “Tarmidh,” with a fatḥah.
Abū ʿAlī Manṣūr ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-Khālidī reported that Abū ʿĪsā said: “I composed this book, presented it to the scholars of the Ḥijāz, Iraq, and Khurāsān, and they approved of it. Whoever possesses this book—that is, the Jāmiʿ—in his house, it is as though a prophet were speaking there.” (2)
I say: The Jāmiʿ contains beneficial knowledge, copious points of interest, and the principal heads of legal discussion; it is one of the foundational works of Islam—were it not marred by some weak reports, a few of them fabricated and many of them in the chapters on virtues.
Abū Naṣr ʿAbd al-Raḥīm ibn ʿAbd al-Khāliq said: “The Jāmiʿ falls into four categories:
- a section whose authenticity is decisively established;
- a section that fulfils the criteria of Abū Dāwūd and al-Nasāʾī, as we have explained;
- a section he included to present the opposing view, and he made its defect clear;
- and a fourth section about which he clarified, saying: ‘I have not placed in this book any hadith except one that some jurists have acted upon, apart from the hadith, “If he drinks a fourth time, then kill him” (3), and apart from the hadith, “He combined between ẓuhr…’”