Did Ibn Hajar (rahimahullah) write the book Munabbihat?
What is the status of the Hadiths found in Munabbihat?
Answer
There isn’t sufficient proof to attribute the book ‘Al-Munabbihat’ to the famous Hafiz Ibn Hajar Al-‘Asqalani (rahimahullah).
1. None of the reliable biographers have mentioned this as his book, neither did his famous student (Hafiz Sakhawi) do so in the 3 volume biography that he wrote about his teacher entitled: ‘Al-Jawahir wad Durar fi Tarjamati Shaykhil Islam ibn Hajar’.
2. In the famous Encyclopedia of Islamic literature; Kashfuz Zunun, Al-Munabbihat has been attributed to another author with a similar name: Ahmad ibn Muhammad Al-Hajji/Al-Hajari. Nothing is known about this person though.
(Kashfuz Zunun, vol.2 pg.1848)
3. Several manuscripts of this book have the above author’s name on their covers.
I personally visited the British Library in January 2001 and saw an entry in their Index of manuscripts with the book Al-Munabbihat being attributed to the above author too.
In light of all of this, one should abstain from attributing the book to the famous commentator of Sahih Bukhari; Hafiz ibn Hajar (rahimahullah).
This gives undue credit to the book. Especially since this book has several unreliable narrations which ibn Hajar (rahimahullah) would not usually quote without pointing out their extreme weakness…
And Allah Ta’ala Knows best,
Answered by: Moulana Muhammad Abasoomar
Checked by: Moulana Haroon Abasoomar