Sunan Abī Dāwūd wa-Īdāh ʿIlalihi wa-Mushkilātihi” (1/ 156), “Jalāʾ al-Afhām fī Fadl al-Salāt wa-l-Salām ʿalā Khayr al-Anām” (1/ 72, 81), “al-Tahbīr bimā Yahill wa-Yahrum min Libās al-Harīr” (3/ 608, 4/ 108), “Madārij al-Sālikīn” (4/ 253), and “Miftāh Dār al-Saʿāda” (4/ 220). Alternatively, he promised to write a treatise on the issue, as he did in several places in his book (3/ 175, 808).

Since each volume forms a distinct thematic unit, we shall go through the volumes of the book and discuss their respective sources, identifying the works from which the author quoted.

• Among the sources of the first volume are:

• “al-Mukhtasar al-Kabīr fī Sīrat al-Rasūl,” by ʿIzz al-Dīn Ibn Jamāʿa. This is one of the author’s most important sources for the section on the Prophet’s life in the first volume. The author neither named the book nor referred to it. However, when discussing the Prophet’s horses, may Allah bless him and grant him peace (1/ 129–130), he said: “These, then, are seven on which there is agreement. Imam Abū ʿAbd Allāh Muhammad ibn Abī Ishāq ibn Jamāʿa al-Shāfiʿī brought their names together in a verse, saying:” After quoting the verse, he said: “His son, Imam ʿIzz al-Dīn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz Abū ʿUmar—may Allah honour him through obedience to Him—related this to me from him.” ʿIzz al-Dīn died in 767 AH, and his father, Badr al-Dīn, in 733 AH. In his “Mukhtasar,” ʿIzz al-Dīn stated that his father had recited the verse to him on more than one occasion.

• He also consulted al-Kamāl Ibn Talha’s work on the Prophet’s circumcision, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and al-Kamāl Ibn al-ʿAdīm’s response to it. He described both works and quoted the latter’s statement (1/ 68).