Securing Knowledge: al-Khatib al-Baghdadi's Taqyid al-'Ilm

by Aisha Y. Musa

Securing Knowledge is the first full English translation of al-Khatib al-Baghdadi’s (d. 463 AH/1071 CE) Taqyid al-‘Ilm. Written in the fifth century AH/eleventh century CE, Taqyid al-‘Ilm is the last extant work that directly addresses early Muslim debates over Hadith.Those debates had gone on for several centuries, but they seem to disappear from the literature after Taqyid al-‘Ilm, in which Baghdad’s premier scholar of Hadith, Abu Bakr Ahmad ibn ‘Ali ibn Thabit, known as al-Khatib al-Baghdadi —the Baghdadi Preacher—brought various reports both in favor of and against putting Hadith in writing together and provided his own explanation for their existence. In doing so, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi played an key role in the process of ensuring the scriptural status of Hadith by giving those who supported that status a clear means of addressing those who opposed it based on the Prophet’s reported prohibition of putting Hadith in writing.

392 pages, Paperback

Published September 11, 2017