Malik’s al-Muwatta, the Abu Musab Narration (Dar al-Tasil Edition)

About this book

Imam Malik ibn Anas al-Asbahi’s (d. 179 AH) al-Muwatta is one of the earliest and most important works of hadith and jurisprudence. It combines Prophetic hadiths, reports from the Companions and Successors, scholars’ opinions, and Malik’s legal reasoning. The narration of Abu Musab Ahmad ibn Abi Bakr al-Zuhri al-Madani (d. 242 AH) is a major and extensive version. Because Abu Musab heard from Malik late in the imam’s life, his narration includes additions absent from some other versions, including that of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi. Dar al-Tasil published this narration in its Diwan al-Hadith al-Nabawi series, edited by its Center for Research and Information Technology. The first edition appeared in three volumes in 1437 AH/2016 CE under the title “al-Muwatta in the Narration of Abu Musab al-Zuhri, Compared with the Narration of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi.” The edition uses two complete manuscripts and a third containing about two-thirds of the work, alongside selected hadith portions of Abu Musab’s narration. It compares the texts with sources transmitting al-Muwatta through him and systematically compares Abu Musab’s version with that of Yahya al-Laythi. The editors fully vocalize chains and texts, identify narrators, trace reports to al-Mizzi’s Tuhfat al-Ashraf and Ibn Hajar’s Ithaf al-Maharah, explain uncommon vocabulary, and provide indexes of reports, narrators, Qur’anic verses, books, chapters, and benefits. This is an important scholarly edition of al-Muwatta, especially for research on variant narrations and additions. Its textual editing, comparison, source-tracing, and vocalization make it valuable for hadith studies, while disputed passages should still be checked against the original witnesses and other narrations.