The manuscript is written in a clear hand and has few omissions. In places, however, it differs from all the other manuscripts in its readings, scribal misreadings, phrasing and wording, and additions that may have been drawn from the author’s sources. We have not noted all its unique readings, but only those of some value—for example, where its wording matches that of a hadith source or is more accurate than that of the other manuscript witnesses.
- The Kattānī Library manuscript (k)
The title page of this manuscript reads: “The third volume of Zād al-Ma‘ād fī Hady Khayr al-‘Ibād (Provision for the Hereafter in the Guidance of the Best of Servants).” Its catalogue number is 1398, and it bears the seal of the Kattānī Library, owned by ‘Abd al-Hayy al-Kattānī. Yet the paper reproduction in our possession contains only the first part, beginning with the author’s words in his introduction, “for the God-fearing and a proof for all creation” (1/ 7), and ending with his words, “He did not recount the hadith, and he did well—may Allah have mercy on him” (3/ 51). The leaves of the entire manuscript are severely disordered. Remarkably, when we arranged them, we found that the page numbered 439 was the beginning of the book’s first part. It became clear that, after the first leaf—which contained the title page and the beginning of the book—had been lost and the manuscript had become scattered, the leaves were numbered in the order in which they were found, and the title page of the third part was placed at the beginning of the manuscript.
Its copyist was Muhammad ibn Ismā‘īl ibn Muhammad ibn Bardis ibn Nasr ibn Bardis ibn Raslān al-Ba‘lī al-Hanbalī, a scholar and hadith specialist from a renowned Hanbalī family. He was born in 745 AH and died in 830 AH. A biography of him appears in al-Daw’ al-Lāmi‘ (The Shining Light) (7/ 142) and elsewhere. He completed the copying on Saturday, 8 Safar 772 AH, as he recorded in the colophon of the first part.