Moreover...

Moreover, it is very helpful to collect hadiths regarding the rulings of fiqh and make them available to scholars. With this, the Prophet’s (s) shari’a will be more complete. Style of writing Muhaddith Nuri wrote the book in a similar style to Wasa’il al-shi’a. Titles of the sections of the book are the same as those in Wasa’il al-shi’a, and so the reader can easily find the relevant hadiths.

And when his view about the titles of sections was different from that of the author of Wasa’il al-shi’a, he tried to keep it as similar as possible. In case he did not find new hadiths in a section, he eliminated that section from his book. The book refers to al-Shaykh al-Hurr al-‘Amili as “Shaykh”, and refers to Wasa’il al-shi’a as “Asl” (origin).

At the end of most sections, there are important points about the issues of the section, such as rulings that can or cannot be derived from them, and other relevant issues. Sometimes a relevant hadith is not cited by al-Hurr al-‘Amili under a section, though it is cited elsewhere. In such cases, Muhaddith Nuri cites such hadiths under the relevant section as well.

Date of writing Muhaddith Nuri started writing the book around 1295/1878 in Samarra near the holy shrine of Imam al-Hadi (a) and Imam al-Hasan al-‘Askari when Mirza Shirazi was in charge of the Isalmic seminaries. The main part of the book was finished in 1313/1895, one year after the death of Mirza Shirazi, and its second part, that is its epilogue, was finished in 1319/1901 in Najaf on Rabi’ II 10/July 27, the birthday of Imam al-Hasan al-‘Askari (a). Features 1.

Some hadiths that are cited in Wasa’il al-shi’a with unreliable chains of narrations are cited in this book with reliable chains. 2. Some hadiths that count in Wasa’il al-shi’a as infrequent proved to be frequent in this book. 3. Some al-mursal hadiths (that is, ones with incomplete chains of narrations) in Wasa’il al-shi’a are cited with complete chains of narrations in this book. 4.

Some al-mawquf hadiths (that is, ones that are not attributed to the Infallibles (a)) are cited with chains of narrations that attribute them to the Infallibles (a). 5. The implications of some ambiguous hadiths are made clear. 6. Nuri cited hadiths with regard to some rulings for which no hadith was cited in Wasa’il al-shi’a.

Epilogue of the book The epilogue of Mustadrak contains an essay by Muhaddith Nuri that, according to Aqa Buzurg Tihrani, is a precious work in dirayat al-hadith and principles of ‘ilm al-rijal.