Usool al Hadith - Forever Islam

with him. One of the most prominent among them was the great historian, al-BaIaadhuree who in his later career borrowed a great deal from Ibn Sa‘d in hiswell known work Futooh al-Buldaan. Ibn Sa‘d died in the year 230AH/844CE. 4Ibn Sa‘d’s Kitaab Akhbaar an-Nabee constitutes only a portion of his majorwork, Tabaqaat. It was compiled and completed by the author, but was handeddown to posterity by his student, Haarith ibn Muhammad ibn Abee Usaamah(802-896).The Tabaqaat was completely planned and compiled by Ibn Sa‘d, but couldnot be completed by him. He dictated whatever he had written of this book, to hisstudent, Husayn ibn Fahm (826-901), who is reported to have been a keen studentof traditions and of the biographies of the narrators. 5 Ibn Fahm completed thebook according to the plan of its author, added to it his short biographical noticeas well as that of certain other narrators whose names had already been includedby the author in the general plan of his work, and read it to his own students. 6The Tabaqaat of Ibn Sa‘d is one of the earliest extant works on Asmaa ar-Rijaal containing biographical notices of most of the important narrators of themost important period in the history of traditions. It is a rich mine of many-sided,valuable information about the early history of Islaam. It may be described notonly as the most important extant work on the subject, but also as one of the mostimportant works in Arabic literature in general. Since the beginning of the fourthcentury A.H., it has been used as a source by a large number of authors onArabian history and biography. Al-Balaadhuree, at-Tabaree, al-Khateeib al-Baghdaadee, Ibn al-Atheer, al-Nawawee and Ibn Hajar all used it as an importantsource for their works, and as-Suyootee summarized it. As a general biographicaldictionary of the narrators it appears to have always occupied a unique position inthe Asmaa ar-Rijaal. The other works of the Tabaqaat class deal only withparticular classes of the narrators. 7Kitaab at-Taareekh of Imaam al-BukhaareeIbn Sa‘d’s Tabaqaat was soon followed by the works of al-Bukhaaree stated thathe possessed some biographical knowledge about every narrator of 300,000traditions he had memorized. He compiled three books on the history of thenarrators in general. The largest of these is said to have contained the biographical4 Hadith Literature, pp. 172-3.5 Taareekh Baghdaad, vol. 8, p. 92.6 Hadith Literature, p. 173.7 Hadith Literature, p. 178.