The Book’s Authorship, Title, and Date of Composition

• The Book’s Authorship

This is the most famous work of Imam Ibn al-Qayyim, may Allah have mercy on him. As noted above, none of his other works has enjoyed comparable acceptance and circulation. All its manuscript copies, biographical works, and those who drew upon it in their writings—whether the author’s students or others—unanimously attribute it to him. In it, Ibn al-Qayyim mentions several of his other works, including Tahdhīb al-sunan, Jalā’ al-afhām, and Miftāh dār al-sa‘āda. As was his custom, he also intersperses it with the statements and preferred views of his teacher, Shaykh al-Islām Ibn Taymiyya. Numerous other indications drawn from the author’s method, style, and assessments leave no room to doubt its attribution to him. Further discussion of this question would therefore serve no purpose.

• The Book’s Title

The author did not give the book’s title in his introduction. Al-Safadī, in his two works al-Wāfī (2/ 271) and A‘yān al-‘asr (4/ 369), and Ibn Rajab, in al-Dhayl ‘alā Tabaqāt al-Hanābila (5/ 175), called it Zād al-ma‘ād fī hady khayr al-‘ibād (Provisions for the Hereafter in the Guidance of the Best of Allah’s Servants). (The printed edition of al-Wāfī has “dīn al-‘ibād”—“the religion of the servants”—which is a textual corruption.)

When the hadith master Ibn Hajar wrote his biography in al-Durar al-kāmina (3/ 402), he said, while listing his works: “His writings include al-Hady, A‘lām al-muwaqqi‘īn, Badā’i‘ al-fawā’id, Turuq al-sa‘ādatayn, Sharh Manāzil al-sā’irīn, and al-Qadā’ wa-l-qadar …” He thus called it “al-Hady” (“The Guidance”) for brevity. This is evident from the way he names most of Ibn al-Qayyim’s books, though it may also suggest a certain lack of care.