Sharh al-akhbar fi fada il al-a immat al-athar, 3 vols.

• Author: Poonawala, Ismail K.

By AL-QADI AL-NU MAN. Edited by MUHAMMAD AL-HUSAYNI AL-JALALI. Qum: MU ASSISAT AL-NASHR AL-ISLAMI, 1409-12 A.H. [1988-92 A.D.]. Pp. 496, 611, 599. Riyals 1800, 2500, 3200.

When the Isma ilis made their dramatic appearance on the stage of Islamic history in A.H. 297/A.D. 909 by establishing the Fatimid dynasty in North Africa, they had neither a hadith collection of their own nor a distinct Isma ili law. As Isma ili law began taking definite shape under the patronage of the Fatimid caliphs, the need for a separate collection of legal traditions was greatly felt by their da is, because by this time hadith had come to be recognized, by the Sunnis and Shi is alike, as second only to the Qur an in authority. It was al-Qadi al-Nu man (d. 363/974) who undertook this task at the suggestion of the first Fatimid caliph, al-Mahdi (297-322/909-34), while he was under his service. Referring to the task, al-Nu man states in the introduction to his Kitab al-iqtisar (ed. M. Wahid Mirza [Damascus, 1376/1957], 9), that he embarked on the collection of traditions transmitted from the family of the Prophet (ahl al-bayt) dealing with customary practices, legal provisions, and formal legal opinions concerning what is lawful and unlawful, by scrutinizing various sources accessible to him by way of sama (direct oral transmission from a shaykh or an imam), ijaza (license to transmit from a shaykh), munawala (a copy of the shaykh's traditions handed over to a student with an ijaza), or sahifa (book). The result was a voluminous composition entitled Kitab al-idah, comprising 3,000 folios. Except for a tiny portion from the chapter on ritual prayer, the entire work is lost. In "The sources of Isma ili law" (Journal of Near Eastern Studies 35 [1976]: 29-40), W. Madelung has analyzed the extant fragment and identified twenty books named in it by al-Nu man as his sources. All of those works, with a single partial exception of al-Kitab al-ja fariya, are no longer extant. Even this small section, thus, provides invaluable data about earlier Shi i collections of hadith that did not survive the vicissitudes of time.

The crowning achievement of al-Nu man, however, came when he was commissioned by the fourth Fatimid caliph, al-Mu izz li Din Allah, to compose his most famous work, Da a im al-islam. As it was proclaimed the official code of the Fatimid state, the authorities for hadith cited in the Da a im are confined to Imam Ja far al-Sadiq and the preceding Imams, for the simple reason that they were accepted by both the Sunnis and Shi is as trustworthy sources. The Da a im is a book of law, but at the same time it is a collection of Isma ili traditions arranged according to the subject matter of jurisprudence, like Malik's al-Muwatta and al-Kulayni's al-Kafi fi ilm al-din. It contains approximately five hundred traditions from the Prophet, a very small number compared to Sunni works.

The work...