Jam' al-Jawami' (al-Jami' al-Kabir) of al-Suyuti

Jam' al-Jawami', also called al-Jami' al-Kabir, is Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti's book in which he aimed to gather all the Prophet's hadiths, and from which he excerpted al-Jami' al-Saghir, as he says in the preface to the latter. ²

In the first of the six points prefacing al-Fath al-Kabir, Yusuf al-Nabhani quotes the preface of Jam' al-Jawami' on the method by which a hadith's standing can be known: citing it to al-Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Hibban, al-Hakim's Mustadrak or al-Diya''s Mukhtara signals soundness, except where the Mustadrak is criticised, and likewise the Muwatta', the Sahihs of Ibn Khuzayma, Abu 'Awana and Ibn al-Sakan, Ibn al-Jarud's Muntaqa and the mustakhrajs; what he cites to Abu Dawud, who was silent on it, is acceptable; the books of al-Tirmidhi, Ibn Majah, al-Tayalisi, Ahmad, al-Tabarani, al-Daraqutni, al-Bayhaqi and others contain sound, good and weak, which he usually indicates; everything in Ahmad's Musnad is acceptable, since its weak reports are close to good; and what he cites to al-'Uqayli, Ibn 'Adi, al-Khatib, Ibn 'Asakir, al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, al-Daylami and the like is weak, the citation itself sufficing to show it. ³

Al-Nabhani also copies a note he saw on the back of a copy of Jam' al-Jawami', in a hand attributed to al-Suyuti: a list of the books he had finished reading for it, written in case he died before completing it, so that whoever continued it need not go through them again — among them the Muwatta', the Musnads of al-Shafi'i, al-Tayalisi and Ahmad, al-Tabarani's Mu'jams, the History of Baghdad, the Hilya, the Mustadrak, al-Bayhaqi's Sunan and Shu'ab al-Iman, Ibn Jarir's Tafsir and Musnad al-Firdaws. ⁴ In the third point he reports that al-Suyuti gathered one hundred thousand hadiths in it, out of some two hundred thousand, died before completing it, and that its order was disturbed by a shuffling of his leaves. ⁵