“The parent manuscript,” chosen because it is the most complete of all the copies, because it was collated against an exemplar that had itself been compared with the author’s own copy, and, finally, because it is of Syrian provenance. The printed edition will therefore be collated with it so that the errors that crept into print may be corrected, the omissions restored, and any passages it contains in excess of the printed text duly noted.
Thereafter the Aḥmadiyyah manuscript will be compared with the other two copies—the Berlin manuscript and, thirdly, the Dār al-Kutub al-Ẓāhiriyyah manuscript—for those parts in which leaves from the latter two survive. Any additional material they contain will be inserted between square brackets [ ], and any omissions, corruptions, misreadings, or variants will be pointed out. The same procedure applies to any other handwritten copies of the work that may be located. Whenever an omission, addition, corruption, misreading, or variant occurs, the manuscripts will be cited in the footnotes by sigla, as follows: the Aḥmadiyyah manuscript = A; the Berlin manuscript = B; the Ẓāhiriyyah manuscript = Z; and the printed edition = P.
Second: With regard to establishing the text itself, the work shall proceed as follows:
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The material is to be broken down, numbered, and ordered. Chapters in volumes (1–6) and (17–18), and years in volumes (8–16), will be treated as page headers. Each chapter and each set of yearly events will be closed with five asterisks (* * * * *) centered on the page.
Qur’anic verses cited in the book are to be numbered in the text by giving the sūrah name and verse number inside square brackets […]; the verses themselves are to be enclosed in ornamental Qur’anic brackets ﴿…﴾; while ḥadīths, reports, and book titles are to be set within quotation marks "…". -
The wording of Qur’anic verses, ḥadīths, reports, lines of poetry, proper names, place-names, and any terms likely to puzzle many readers must all be fully vocalized.
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For every person whose biography is given individually, the sources are to be listed in chronological order, indicating the works that pre-date the author and those contemporary with him.
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Each Prophetic ḥadīth cited in the book is to be traced back to the source from which the author himself quoted, with mention of any earlier appearance of that ḥadīth, or of its presence in the very source he used, not through other chains of transmission. The same applies to Companion reports that are not raised to the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him. The sources should likewise be arranged chronologically, and the accuracy of the wording in the author’s source must be verified so that any omissions may be replaced and any additions in its text signaled.
The documentation of a ḥadīth shall be set out as follows, by way of example: