In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Introduction

All praise belongs to Allah, Lord of the worlds, and may blessings and peace be upon our Prophet Muhammad, upon his family, and upon all his Companions.

To proceed:

The honor of every branch of knowledge is measured by the honor of that which it studies; its rank rises in proportion to how greatly people need it, and the extent of its benefit among creation displays its superiority over other disciplines. Among the most exalted and most beneficial sciences is the science of hadith, through which Allah has preserved the Sunnah of His Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. One of the means by which the Almighty has safeguarded it is His enabling of firmly grounded scholars to author works—both extensive and concise—on the sciences of hadith. Among those scholars is the hadith master Ahmad ibn ʿAli ibn Hajar, may Allah have mercy on him. In his book Nukhbat al-Fikar fī Muṣṭalaḥ Ahl al-Athar he gathered that which had been scattered, distilled the knowledge of those who preceded him, and added rare insights and valuable benefits, all with precise induction, thorough examination, and systematic classification. Consequently, his composition emerged as a concise yet comprehensive masterpiece that the people of knowledge have received with acceptance.

For this reason I undertook to produce a critical edition of it as part of the “Additional Edited Texts” series within the Student of Knowledge Core Texts. I relied on precious manuscript copies so that the work might appear in the finest form, just as its author intended. In the footnotes of the present edition I have recorded the variations among the manuscripts and other pertinent details, and I have prepared another version free of those annotations.