Motives and Acknowledgments
I owe my lasting interest in the methodology of historical research to Dr. Murtaá¸Ä Ḥasan al-NaqÄ«b, with whom I took up a deeply enlightening course in manhaj al-baḥth al-tÄrÄ«khÄ« in the fall semester of 1988 at the Department of History, Baghdad University. Dr. al-NaqÄ«b showed me the way out of parochial âhistorical materialism,â with which I had been indoctrinated to that point, into the multitude of interpretative paradigms and ultimately directed my attention to ḥadÄ«th and prosopography as effective means of historical inquiry. I dedicate this monograph to the memory of Dr. al-NaqÄ«b, who passed away on 29 December 2018.
I would like to thank Professor Christopher Melchert for his critical reading of the manuscript, especially its chapters on Muslimâs oeuvre, theology, and method of ḥadÄ«th criticism. He pointed out a few glaring errors of fact and judgment and helped me to eliminate many slips of the pen as well as trivia. I am grateful to Dr. Fatma Kizil, who expertly expedited the publication of my article about Muḥammad b. IbrÄhÄ«m al-KisÄʾīâs transmission of Muslimâs á¹¢aḥīḥ in ḤadÄ«th and SÄ«ra Studies, and to the articleâs anonymous readers, who had important comments on aspects of my research methodology. My study of the transmission of Muslimâs á¹¢aḥīḥ would have been incomplete without Dr. Kizilâs helpful translation of parts of Mehmet Emin ÃzafÅarâs essay on this topic. I thankfully acknowledge Dr. Ali Aghaeiâs, Raashid Goyalâs, and Muntasir Zamanâs comments and suggestions about publications on Muslim, the location of his tomb, and the early history of NaysÄbÅ«r. Any remaining errors are my sole responsibility.
The present monograph is an extension of my work on an entry about Muslim b. al-ḤajjÄj for Encyclopaedia of Islam Three, which I began in early 2019. My initial research on the topic made me realize that important aspects of the life and works of this great traditionist, theologian, and ḥadÄ«th critic are either unexplored or set out in a way that does not take into account the variety of source material. The scope of my study quickly transcended the textual limits of an encyclopedia entry; hence, the present monograph.
A part of my research on Muslim was to be presented to the Thirtieth Congress of Union Européenne des Arabisants et Islamisants in Utrecht in July 2020. The global COVIDâ19 pandemic and the ensuing postponement of the congress, first to 2021 and then to 2022, stood in the way of my intentions. All the same, the shift to online teaching and the cancellation of public events in 2020 and 2021 were advantageous to my work on the present project. They granted me the rare opportunity to prepare the text of the monograph fasterâperhaps by a yearâthan I would have been able to do in pre-pandemic academic and social circumstances.
The concluding stage of my work on the monograph was supported by the Pforzheimer Fellowship Programme, administered by the Centre for Advanced Study (CAS), Sofia, based on the project âMuslim b. al-ḤajjÄj of Nishapur (d. 261â¯H/875â¯CE): The Critical Saint,â grant no. AAFâPforzâ02/01.10.2021.