As for the manuscripts, they agree on the familiar title, except for the Egyptian National Library manuscript (234 - Hadith), designated (مب). This is an old, undated manuscript whose title page reads: “Zād al-ma‘ād fīmā balaghanā min hady khayr al-‘ibād (Provisions for the Hereafter in What Has Reached Us of the Guidance of the Best of Allah’s Servants).” Perhaps the author, may Allah have mercy on him, gave it this title in some copies of the book; alternatively, the wording may have been altered by the manuscript’s scribe or owner.

At the end of the first part of the Kattānī manuscript, its scribe, Ibn Bardis al-Ba‘lī al-Hanbalī, wrote in 772 AH: “The first volume of Hady al-nabī (The Prophet’s Guidance), may Allah bless him and grant him peace, is complete.”

At the beginning of the second part of the Manisa manuscript, likewise copied in 772 AH, we find: “The second part of al-Hady al-nabawī (The Prophetic Guidance).” Its closing statement reads: “The end of the second volume of al-Hady.” The first part of this manuscript has not reached us.

The title page of the second part of the Bayezid manuscript, copied in 767 AH, reads: “The second part of Zād al-ma‘ād fī hady khayr al-‘ibād, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, also known as al-Hady.”

It is quite possible that al-Hady al-nabawī (The Prophetic Guidance) or Hady al-nabī (The Prophet’s Guidance), may Allah bless him and grant him peace, was the title written at the beginning of some manuscripts. It is also quite possible that the author himself used this wording at the opening of some copies, as a loose, abbreviated title.

Those who quote from the present book sometimes use its full title and sometimes abbreviate it. Al-Qastallānī, for example, in Irshād al-sārī, sometimes called it “Zād al-ma‘ād” (2/ 195. 8/ 364, 369, 375. 9/ 200), once “al-Hady al-nabawī” (8/ 345), and twice simply “al-Hady” (8/ 43, 371). The hadith master Ibn Hajar called it “al-Hady al-nabawī” in one passage of al-Fath (11/ 133)—a designation also used in