Prayer requests for Allamah Sahib

yes, in deed, otherwise the count of actual matn is much lesser than that, perhaps even less than 10,000.

 

to add to brother SherKhan's questions: Will memorizing a hadith through various chains count as a single hadith memorization or several depending on the number of chains that it comes through? eg. if a hadith is narrated through 4 different chains with the matn being the same will that be considered to be one hadith that is added into the memorization pool or will that be four?

 

Can you please clarify if the above count includes or excludes duplication of hadith under separate chapters? (I'm not sure what ta'liq means, can you please clarify that as well).

The page count that you mention in the table, does that refer to individual volume page count or aggregate page count across all volumes?

 

Regarding this, the elders of the family have said that Sayyidi Taj al-Shari'ah inherited two direct gifts from Ala Hazrat. The first is his memory which is truly remarkable and unparalleled and the second is specialization in Calligraphy.

 

Allamah Sahib made this statement after reading Nihayat uz-Zayn by Taj al-Shari'ah which is a wonderful Arabic book on the hadith of Thuwayba.

 

Yes. Ma sha Allah. It's not a small feat by any means. 60,000 is a large number and this was in 1989, 24 years ago. That is pretty amazing. Even then, allamah sahib said "I don't understand why people call me a Muhadith. The real Muhadith is Taajush shariah." Subhan Allah! I have never met anyone as humble as Muhadith e kabir

 

Mawlana Aftab Cassim said that number 60,000 was recorded in 1989 and I've also heard that allamah sahib hasn't stopped learning and memorising Hadith. He still memorises and learns them when he can.

"In Banaras, U.P, India, A Munazarah took place between the Ahl-e-Sunnah and the Ahl-e-Hadeeth. Huzoor Mujaahid-e-Millah, Allama Arshad Al-Qadri and mufti Shareef Al-Haq were present in Banaras to debate for the Ahle Sunnah. Allama Sahib was very young and was at home in Ghosi. He was not supposed to be taking part in the Munaazarah, however, the three previous mentioned great Ulema decided to call Allama Sahib as they felt a need for his presence. Remember Allama Sahib was very young at this time. Allama Sahib had to leave Ghosi straight away, and travelled in a local train, standing all the way until He reached Banaras.

He was chosen by the Ahle Sunnah Ulema to be the Munaazir from the Ahle Sunnah side. He debated, and finally the Ahle Sunnah won the munaazarah.

Huzoor Mujaahid-e-Millah said after the Munaazarah that He was astonished by Allama Sahib's level of understanding of the uloom of Hadith, "Surely Mowlana Zia Al-Mustafa is not only a Muhaddith but is Muhaddith-e-Kabeer".

This was the very Munazarah because of which Allama Sahib is called, "Faatih-e-Banaras."

 

besides, the book you have mentioned (on p.12) mentions "KNOWLEDGE of 60K hadith," which is not a small feat anyhow.

 

disclaimer: the mention of tahir is only to explain the reason for my tabulation; no insinuation or disrespect intended towards mawlana ziau'l mustafa sahib. shaykh abdullah sirajuddin of syria is also reported to have memorised 80,000 hadith.

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the hadith in the six books add up to approximately 35,000-40,000 [depending on whether you include the hadith mentioned as ta'liq]

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tahir jhangvi claimed to have perused about 400,000 hadith in some video. he made this claim twice as far as i know.

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jam' al-jawamiy of imam suyuti is a collection of about 50,000 hadith - because imam suyuti collated and consolidated hadith from about 100 primary sources. imam suyuti had memorised 200,000 hadith and the 100 primary sources that HE mentioned would approximately add up to 50,000 unique narrations. tahir jhangvi claims to be a student of imam jalaluddin suyuti (in his dreams of course) and he knows twice the number of hadith than suyuti himself?*

so i set out making a table on approximate hadith numbers in the 100 books mentioned by imam suyuti [using the hadith count in commonly available published works]. it is still a work in progress, but a snippet is attached showing twelve works. [note that ta'liqat are not included; i have just tried to find the approximate number of each book by inspection]

Allah ta'ala knows best.

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*this gives rise to amusing 'explanations':
- he read the 200,000 in dream once and once in wakefulness; hence 400,000.
- he read the 200,000 from primary sources once; and once jam' al-jawamiy (which would be like reading 100 books and 200K) hence 400,000.
- insert your own...

 

Yes and also, I heard that ala hazrat called him the Amir al-Mumineen fil Hadith of the subcontinent.

 

jazakAllah for pointing out the goof!

i was told that he has the entire sihah collections in his purview and he quotes freely from them so i gathered that he must've memorized them almost in their entirety but from what brother TI said it seems that it must be a 'major portion' rather than 'almost entire'. jazakAllah for pointing that out too.

exaggerations are always an insult and not an honor. something like saying, we only respect the false and fanciful image that we have formed about you in our hearts/minds and not your true self! so if ever the sun of reality shines upon this phantom of a caricature we believe to be yours and its contours become sharper we won't find you interesting anymore!

actually i did not know how many ahadith it amounts to when one says sihah-sittah otherwise the book posted here mentions that he's memorized more than 60,000 ahadith.

but it comes as a surprise to me that muhaddith surati only knew bukhari by heart, not that its a small feat but we are accustomed to hearing numbers in the range of 1000s when we read about past scholars.

jazakAllah. Wassalaam.

 

When a student of Allamah Sahib asked hazrat in his younger days, hazrat said he has memorised 60000 hadith. I don't know how much there are in Bukhari, Muslim and the rest of the sahih Sittah but I'm pretty sure they add up to more than 60000

 

" Unki aur baat hai. Unka 'ilm 'ilm-e-seenah hai aur hamara 'ilm 'ilm-e-safeenah hai " !

" His case is different. His knowledge is preserved in his bosom/heart but for us (external) vessels (i.e books) are as indispensable as a ship is for a seafarer. "

This is his tawaz'u. otherwise he has committed to memory almost the entire siHah-sittah and more!

 

I spoke to Mufti Jamaal ul Mustafa al Qadri (Muhaddith Kabeer's son) earlier and he said that the Shaykh is still quite weak.

However despite being ill Sayyiduna Muhaddith Kabeer Allamah Zia ul Mustafa al Qadri may Allah protect him is lecturing in Banaras Hind.

Subhaan Allah.

May Allah keep him in His Hizf and Amaan aameen

 

May Allah grant him shifa and a long healthy life: I too have been very fortunate to be associated with this great scholar, on many occasions: including hosting him at my residence in UAE.

he is indeed one of the few staunch, highly erudite and pious scholars.

 

Once hazrat was invited to a program. Someone offered him a nazrana which was a very large amount. Allama sahib refused it saying "ye nazrana hai?!"

 

What does this mean?

 

jazakAllah for sharing your experiences. its always heartening to learn about the shining stars of the ummah of our beloved Rasul (sallallahualayhiwasallam) and a person's true character is known only when he is in most informal and relaxed viz. at his house.

a scholar once said to me that Allamah sahib fulfills all conditions of a 'thiqah' rawi of hadeeth.

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some time back mawlana Waqar Ahmed Azizi (hafidhhullah) suggested to Allamah sahib that he should go to Hajj/Umrah while his health permits. He replied that he couldn't as there's lots of authoring to do. mawlana waqar asked him why he doesn't dictate works to a scribe on-the-go as Azhari Sahib does to which Allamah replied,

" Unki aur baat hai. Unka 'ilm 'ilm-e-seenah hai aur hamara 'ilm 'ilm-e-safeenah hai " !

 

subhanAllah, highly recommend that one listens to this emotional talk by Mufti Zahid on Huzur Muhaddith e Kabeer (Mufti Zahid is his student):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39-LQ1GMhHg

And as brother Qasim pointed out about Hazrat's humbleness, listen to Allamah Saheb's response (from 6 min onwards) to someone reciting a Manqabat in his presence:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxsniYX-7Zg