- Editorial Methodology
When we signed the agreement to prepare a critical edition of the book, the sponsoring body supplied me with a file that contained the base text—its hadiths and reports already sourced—as well as a copy of the guidelines adopted for editing the project’s publications.
Our work on the book comprised four main tasks: establishing the text, annotating it, supplying an introduction, and indexing its contents.
A. Establishing the text
– We collated the wording against the two principal manuscripts and, where extant, against the abridged copy designated “M.” My brother Majdi al-Sayyid Amin read the entire work aloud while I followed along with the manuscripts in hand.
– Every quotation was checked against its original source; the most reliable reading was inserted into the main text, and any wording found only outside the three manuscripts was enclosed in square brackets.
– The text was divided into paragraphs, and suitable punctuation was added.
– My brother ʿĀṭif ibn Maḥmūd inserted the noble Qurʾanic verses from the muṣḥaf, fully vocalised in ʿUthmānic script according to the recitation of al-Dūrī from Abū ʿAmr al-Baṣrī—the reading prevalent in the author’s time, may Allah have mercy on him. The manuscripts’ orthography matches this reading except in two places, which I have noted in the footnotes. We placed the verse references inside the main text, immediately after each verse, in square brackets and in a slightly smaller font.
– The noble prophetic hadiths were fully vocalised, as were the poetic verses.