(3) The Size of the Work

The sources differ over the actual size of the book and the number of its volumes, providing three opinions:

First: that it is spread over several volumes. This is stated by Shihāb al-Dīn Ibn Rajab in his Muʿjam Shuyūkhihi—as cited in al-Muntaqā minhu (p. 101)—by his son Zayn al-Dīn Ibn Rajab in Dhayl Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila (5/175), by al-ʿUlāimī in al-Durr al-Munaḍḍad (2/522) and in al-Minhaj al-Aḥmad (5/94), by Siddīq Ḥasan Khān in al-Tāj al-Mukallal (p. 411) and Abjad al-ʿUlūm (3/140), and by al-Shattī in Mukhtaṣar Ṭabaqāt al-Ḥanābila (69).

Second: that it consists of two volumes. This was the view of Ibn al-ʿImād in Shadharāt al-Dhahab (8/290) and of Ibn Badrān in Munādamat al-Aṭlāl (p. 241).

Third: that it is confined to a single volume. This is what al-Dāwūdī states in Ṭabaqāt al-Mufassirīn (2/96).

The size of any set of volumes naturally varies according to the number of folios, the number of lines per page, the paper dimensions, the script size, and the style of writing. Take, for example, Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī: its manuscripts are beyond counting—one finds a complete copy in a single volume, in two, in three, and even in thirty volumes.

There is no doubt that al-Ṣawāʿiq al-Mursala is a sizeable work. It is larger than would ordinarily fit into one standard volume, and may therefore occupy two large volumes or even several volumes. The portion we have examined—the Aleppo manuscript—extends to 137 folios, each ruled for 35 lines, and it has—