Mishkat al-Masabih

Mishkat al-Masabih is the improved version of Masabih al-Sunnah. Al-Tabrizi d. 741H ^[1] essentially rendered a version of the text more preferable to those who don't possess a more advanced knowledge of the science of hadith by writing a commentary on it by the directions of 'Allamah Husayn ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Muhammad al-Tibi, and this writing is what came to be known as Mishkat al-Masabih. It contains 4434 to 5945 ahadith, divided up amongst 29 books and is considered by Sunni scholars as an important writing. An example of a hadith from Mishkat al-Masabih is as follows:

"He is not a perfect believer, who goes to bed full and knows that his neighbour is hungry. [Mishkat Al-Masabih 2/424]"

Improvements by Al-Tabrizi

• He added 1511 ahadith to the ahadith already found in the collection Masabih al-Sunnah.
• Al-Baghawi classified many ahadith as sahih when at times Al-Tabrizi did not agree. Al-Tabrizi expounded on the labels he placed on the ahadith and re-classified many of them.
• He added al-Fasl al-Thalith, a third section to the Masabih al-Sunnah, which was already divided in two parts by Al-Baghawi.
• Al-Baghawi didn't mention the isnads of the ahadith he collected, Al-Tabrizi mentions the source from where the hadith is originally found making the text more reliable.

Explanation(s)

• Mirqat al Mafatih Sharh Mishkat al-masabih is a multi volume work, authored by 17th century Islamic scholar Mulla Ali al-Qari.

References

Arabic Wikisource has original text related to this article: Mishkat al-Masabih

1. ^ Zirikli, al-A'lam, p. 6/234