Whoever engages in hadith science and the study of chains of transmission knows how indispensable indexing is and how constantly he needs it. The Shaykh’s own indexes cover many different kinds.
Among them are indexes of aṭrāf (partial wordings), such as:
(a) Bughyat al-Ḥāzim, an index to the Mustadrak of al-Ḥākim;
(b) Index of the hadiths in al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr;
(c) Index of the hadiths in Kitāb al-Sharīʿah;
(d) A comprehensive index of the hadiths and reports in al-Kāmil.
Next come indexes of narrators—the Companions and those after them. These include:
(a) Rijāl al-Jarḥ wa al-Taʿdīl. I mentioned it earlier and noted there that it is probably an index of every narrator named in the book—Allah knows best;
(b) Index of the Companions who transmit hadiths in al-Ṭabarānī’s Muʿjam al-Awsat. His care for this work has already been noted, along with the fact that he prepared four separate indexes for it;
(c) Index of the Companion-narrators in the Musnad of Imām Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal.
He also compiled indexes for manuscript libraries, such as:
(a) Titles of the works copied from the Ẓāhiriyyah Library;
(b) Index of hadith manuscripts in the Awqāf Library of Aleppo;
(c) Selected index of the Ibn Yūsuf Library in Marrakesh;
(d) Selections from the catalogue of the British Library;
(e) Al-Muntakhab min Makhṭūṭāt al-Ḥadīth, the most widely used of all his indexes.
One of his most remarkable indexes is the Index to Kitāb al-Kawākib al-Darārī by Ibn ʿUrwah al-Ḥanbalī, together with a list of the works contained in it. The sheer size of al-Kawākib and the multitude of books and scholarly treatises it preserves—some rare, others entirely lost—make such an index invaluable.
Other works that fall under the heading of indexing are:
(a) al-Mustadrak ʿalā al-Muʿjam al-Mufahras li-Alfāẓ al-Ḥadīth;
(b) Mawārid al-Suyūṭī in al-Jāmiʿ al-Ṣaghīr.
These are but a few hallmarks of the Shaykh’s writings. I have recorded them in haste, whereas they truly deserve a full study entitled “Al-Albānī and His Methodology in Authorship.” May someone devoted to the Shaykh’s scholarship produce such a work, and Allah is the One who grants success.