Dalail al-Nubuwwa

Dalail al-Nubuwwa is one of the works of the Shafi'i hadith master Abu Bakr al-Bayhaqi of Nishapur (d. 458 AH). Al-Subki lists it in his Tabaqat among al-Bayhaqi's compositions, of which he wrote: "as for the Book of Creed, the Book of the Proofs of Prophethood, the Book of the Branches of Faith, the Book of the Merits of al-Shafi'i and the Great Book of Prayers — I swear that not one of them has its like" ¹.

Al-Bayhaqi's compositions, in al-Subki's report, reached a thousand booklets unmatched by anyone; and al-Dhahabi — as transmitted there — held that al-Bayhaqi's hadith range was not vast but blessed in its yield through his skill, and that Imam al-Haramayn said: "every Shafi'i owes a debt to al-Shafi'i, except al-Bayhaqi — it is al-Shafi'i who owes him, for his works defending his school and his pronouncements" ¹.

• Text from al-Subki's Tabaqat al-Shafi'iyya al-Kubra (harvest copy AAlexandrina-150846), pp. 12-14, the al-Bayhaqi tarjama; the card's claim of a seven-part internal division awaits confirmation from the book's own text (the extraction seerah/dalail-nubuwwa-bayhaqi/311Pdf219 is on the drive, not yet reviewed).