Next to the Qur'an, Islam’s holiest text is qudsi hadith. Based on this premise, Islamic scholars have always been fascinated with the collection and study of this type of hadith. The first scholar to have an exclusive collection of qudsi hadiths was Zahir-Bin-Tahir Abu-Al-Qasim Al-Shahhami in the twelfth century. Then came Abu-Al-Hasan Al-Lakhmi who collected forty qudsi hadiths in a book titled Al-Arba`in Al-Ilahiyyah (Forty Divine Hadiths). And then came Al-Nawawi, Ibn-Arabi, Al-Munawi, and Al-Madani who collected 99, 101, 278, and 863 qudsi hadiths respectively.
When we set out to produce a book of qudsi hadith in English, our goal was very clear: to produce a book that has every qudsi hadith ever reported. We collected 1230 qudsi hadiths in a book we titled 1000 Qudsi Hadiths: An Encyclopedia of Devine Sayings.
1000 Qudsi Hadiths is not only the biggest collection of qudsi hadiths in English, it is the biggest collection of qudsi hadiths ever put together in any language including Arabic. It contains all the qudsi hadiths reported by major hadith reporters such as Al-Bukhari and Muslim as well as all the qudsi hadiths reported by auxiliary hadith reporters such as Al-Tabarani, Al-Bayhaqi, Al-Hakim Al-Naysaburi, Ibn-Hibban, Ibn-Khuzaymah, Al-Daylami, Ibn-Hajar, Al-Suyuti, Al-Muttaqi Al-Hindi, Al-Mundhiri, Al-Haythami, and Ibn-Kathir. The book derives its content from the biggest 216 hadith books ever written.
What makes this encyclopedia so unique is not just the overwhelming number of qudsi hadiths it contains, but the fact that each qudsi hadith is listed with full sanad, source, and rating from sahih to mawdu`. Furthermore, each qudsi hadith is clearly stated and explained with more than 1300 footnotes.
After many years of continuous research and translation, the Arabic Virtual Translation Center is proud to present not only the biggest and most comprehensive collection of qudsi hadiths in history, but, much more importantly, an indispensable beacon of Islamic literature to academicians and students of hadith for many generations to come.
