Bulugh al-Maram
This blessed and beneficial book, though small in size, gathers all that renders lengthy works unnecessary. Scholars of earlier and later times have welcomed it wholeheartedly: there is scarcely a study circle in which Bulugh al-Maram is not at the top of the reading list. Students, too, have devoted themselves to memorizing and circulating it, dispensing with other works of its kind. Consequently it has enjoyed widespread acceptance and constant popularity; in every age multitudes have benefited from it. When institutes of learning and religious colleges were later established in our lands, it became the very first book preferred for teaching and official coursework.

This distinguished volume possesses several valuable features unmatched elsewhere; some of them are as follows:
1 – Its author specifies the rank of each hadith—sound, fair, or weak—in a way that spares the student the need to consult other references.
2 – Within each topic he cites only the proof-text necessary for the ruling, without compromising the intended meaning; the result is both brevity and benefit.
3 – When a hadith has additional narrations containing useful material for the topic, he appends them succinctly and clearly, so that the reports complete one another.
4 – He selected the book’s hadiths from the famous and authoritative collections, foremost among them Musnad Ahmad, the two Sahih collections, and the four Sunan.
5 – He generally opens each chapter with what is found in both Sahih collections—or in one of them—then follows with what appears in the Sunan and other works, so that the authentic reports remain the chief evidence for the chapter while the remainder serve as supplements and completions.
6 – He traces the hidden defects found in any hadith and points them out.