How Sahih is Zujajat al-Masabih

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

We have previously clarified in Fatwa 196183 that Zujaajat Al-Masaabeeh is a book about the evidence for Fiqh issues in the Hanafi School of Fiqh, and it is arranged in the same fashion as Mishkaat Al-Masaabeeh by At-Tabreezi.

Zujaajat Al-Masaabeeh was authored by Abul-Hasanaat As-Sayyid ‘Abdullaah Shaah Al-Haydar Abaadi, a Hanafi scholar.

As regards the authenticity of this book, if you mean whether or not the Ahaadeeth that are cited in it are authentic, then we have not read this book and we have not come across any scholar who reviewed it or commented on the authenticity of the Ahaadeeth cited in it. Therefore, we cannot accurately judge the authenticity of the Ahaadeeth in it.

However, it seems that some of the Ahaadeeth have authentic chains of transmission while others have weak ones. For instance, he opens the book with a chapter about the virtues of the Quran and the first Hadeeth that he reported is the Hadeeth narrated by ‘Uthmaan in which the Prophet said: “The best among you are those who memorize the Quran and teach it.” [Al-Bukhari] Then the second Hadeeth he mentioned was narrated by Abu Hurayrah that the Prophet said: “Learn the Quran and recite it, as the likeness of the Quran and the one who learns it and acts upon it, is that of a sack filled with musk which spreads its fragrance everywhere. And the likeness of the one who learns it then sleeps with the Quran in his heart, is like the sack that is tied up from which no fragrance comes out.” [At-Tirmithi, An-Nasaa’i and Ibn Maajah]

Shaykh Al-Albaani classified the chain of transmission of this Hadeeth as weak on several occasions in his works. Perhaps this gives us a general idea of the book and that the chain of narrators of some Ahaadeeth cited in it are authentic while others are not.

Allaah Knows best.