In this collection, the great eighteenth century Hadith master, Shāh Walī Allāh, transmits forty hadith that he heard directly from his teacher, Sheikh Abu Tāhir al-Kurdī al-Madanī, with an uninterrupted chain of transmission through Imām al-Husayn (may Allah be pleased with him). Shāh Walī Allāh was born in northern India in 1703 in a learned family descended from the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ. As a young man, he studied the major hadith collections with his father and then traveled to the Hijaz, where he continued his studies with various eminent teachers, including Shaykh Abu Tāhir al-Kurdī al-Madani, through whom he transmits the hadiths in this collection. Shah Wali Allah composed some fifty works in total, including the Hujjat Allah al-Baligha or The Conclusive Argument from God—which is considered his prime achievement—and an early Persian translation of the Qur an, as well as a number of works treating Islamic legal methodologies and Sufi metaphysics.

Practical Application is the common theme in Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti's collection of hadiths. Each of the forty hadith in this book is striking by its immediate relevance; whether on questions of legal judgment, virtuous action, or asceticism, the reader will find lessons that can be applied in almost any situation. Imam Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti was a towering ninth century Egyptian scholar and is considered the reviver of his era. He was a prolific writer and has over 600 titles to his name, many of which are encyclopedic in nature and cover almost every science of his day. He traveled extensively to gather hadith, including Morocco, Chad, Syria, the Hijaz, Yemen, and even India.

Beginning with biographical notes on the wives of the Prophet ﷺ, Ibn ʿAsakir takes the reader through a remarkable collection of hadith describing the virtues of the 'Mothers of the Believers', an appellation invested on the wives of the Prophet Ibn ʿAsakir by the Qurʾanic text itself. Born in a scholarly Damascene family in the 6th century (Hijri), Ibn ʿAsakir became an accomplished jurist, hadith specialist, and a prolific author. His learning had a profound effect on him and he was noted for his asceticism, devotion, and tearfulness.

The Arbaʿin or Chihil Kalima of Jamiʾ is a choice collection of Traditions of the Blessed Prophet ﷺ. The main emphasis is on cultivating high qualities of character. The compiler, who was a great Persian scholar and poet, further enriched his beautiful hadith selection with pithy and eloquent paraphrases in verse. In this edition, Turath Publishing presents the original Arabic and Persian texts together with the English translations of both. These are complemented by an introductory account of Jamiʾ and his works, and also by notes on both the content and the sources of the hadiths. Born near Kharjird in western Afghanistan, ʿAbd al-Rahmān Jāmīʾ (d. 896/1492) was already a religious scholar of tremendous ability when he experienced a call to the mystical Path. Settling in the Timurid capital of Herat, Jami embarked on a spiritual and intellectual journey that led him to produce some of the greatest didactic and lyric verse in the canon of classical Persian poetry, as well as prose works on a remarkably wide range of subjects, including metaphysics, ethics, jurisprudence, biography, and Arabic grammar.

This is an opuscule of forty hadiths by Imam Ibn Hajar which he narrates from forty different Companions through forty shuyukh in a myriad of places; from the old Salihiyya quarter of Damascus to the Riyad-al-Jannah in the Prophet's Mosque. The book is a joy to read since not only the subject matter is interesting but the actual isnads of the hadith with their special features. Writing forty hadith collections has been an old scholarly tradition tracing its origins to Abdullah ibn Mubarak, its justification going as far back as to the Prophet. In this respect, the reader becomes a part of this blessed historical tradition, especially with Ibn Hajar's initiation of the book with the hadith, "al-musalsal biʾl-awwaliyya." Imam Ahmad ibn ʿAli al-ʿAsqalāni (d. 852/1448), famously known as Ibn Hajar after one of his ancestors, is arguably the best hadith scholar of the Mamluk period. The Dhahabi of his time and the Amir al-Muminin of the hadith scholars. The scholar Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti says that Ibn Hajar drank from the well of Zamzam and prayed to Allah to give him more knowledge than Shams ad-Din adh-Dhahabi. He is the author of over 300 books some going into lengthy volumes. He died on Friday 28 Dhuʾl-Hijja 852 AH and was buried in al-Qarrafa, Cairo, now famously known as the City of the Dead (Madinat al-mawta).

A land sanctified by the Qurʾan itself and blessed in the prayers of the Prophet ﷺ, Sham is a region of momentous importance and consequence, and is now a witness to violent convulsions and turmoil. In this indispensable collection, the author presents forty hadith about Sham, its virtues with a short commentary and biographies of the Companions who lived and died here. Sheikh al-Hadith Mufti Shabbir Ahmed Sahib is one of the leading scholars of the UK. He teaches the sciences of hadith, Qurʾanic exegesis, and jurisprudence at Dar al-Ulum Al-Arabiya Al-Islamia in Bury, Manchester, and serving as the Grand Mufti. He studied under many distinguished scholars, most notably Sheikh al-Hadith Mawlana Muhammad Yunus Jawnpuri in Saharanpur, India. He also has authorisations in the hadith sciences from Sheikh al-Hadith Mawlana Muhammad Zakariyya Sahib (may Allah have mercy on him). His students include many of the leading scholars of the UK.