on omitting them, I have kept this book free of them. As for the hadith whose chains of transmission I have not mentioned, most of them were received through oral transmission, and the greater part of them are found in the books of the imams. I omitted their chains only to avoid undue length, relying on the transmission of the imams.”
In this work, Muhyi al-Sunnah combined transmission with critical understanding, making it one of the valuable books. Moreover, he was well acquainted with the statements of the Companions, the Followers, the imams, and the independent jurists. This book was prepared by the two scholars Shuʿayb al-Arnaʾut and Zuhayr al-Shawish, and was published by al-Maktab al-Islami in Beirut in 16 volumes, with indexes.
- Masabih al-Sunnah (The Lamps of the Sunnah): In it, its author collected a selection of hadith, omitting their chains of transmission and relying on the imams’ transmission of them. He divided the hadith in each chapter into sound and fair reports. By “sound,” he meant those recorded by the two Shaykhs, al-Bukhari and Muslim; and by “fair,” those recorded by the compilers of the Sunan collections. Wherever these contained a weak or singular report, he pointed it out. He omitted mention of reports that were rejected or fabricated. It is a well-known work, printed in more than one edition. Scholars devoted attention to it through study and annotation, and produced many commentaries on it. Among the most important was that of Shaykh Wali Allah Abu Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Abd Allah al-Khatib, who completed al-Masabih and supplemented its chapters by identifying the Companion from whom each hadith was narrated and the book in which it was recorded. To every chapter containing sound and fair reports—except in rare instances—he added a third section, which he called Mishkat al-Masabih (The Niche of the Lamps), thus making it a complete work (1).
The latter has been printed in several editions. The most recent was published by al-Maktab al-Islami in a critical edition prepared by Professor Nasir al-Din al-Albani, in three volumes. Masabih al-Sunnah was also printed in four volumes.
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Al-Anwar fi Shamaʾil al-Nabi al-Mukhtar (Lights on the Characteristics of the Chosen Prophet): It was mentioned by the author of Kashf al-Zunun (2) and by Shaykh Muhammad ibn Jaʿfar al-Kattani in his book al-Risalah al-Mustatrafah. It is arranged in one hundred and one chapters, following the method of hadith scholars and including chains of transmission (3).
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Al-Jamʿ bayn al-Sahihayn (The Combination of the Two Sahih Collections): It was mentioned by the author of Muʿjam al-Muʾallifin (4) and by some of his biographers.
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Al-Arbaʿun Hadithan (Forty Hadith): It was mentioned by Ibn Qadi Shahbah, on the authority of al-Dhahabi.
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A collection of legal rulings: It contains the legal rulings of his teacher concerning jurisprudential questions put to Imam Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Marwazi, the author of al-Taʿliqah. Al-Baghawi traced these rulings and compiled them. A copy is held at the al-Zahiriyyah Library in Damascus (5).