Tracing the Rihla in Buld?n Books: Ibn al-Faq?h's Muhaddith Resources

Abstract

The hadith narration, which started when the Prophet (pbuh) was alive, both accelerated and became widespread after his death and the transfer of his companions to different regions. The Companions, who went out of Medina for different reasons such as military activities in the conquered regions or teaching Islam, and settled in the regions they went to, took a great deal of knowledge with them. Undoubtedly, the Sunnah of the Prophet comes after the Qur'an the leading of this accumulation. The desire to learn the hadiths of the Companions who settled in different regions has been valid for everyone dealing with hadith since the first century of Hijri. This desire turned into individual journeys and then rihla activities, which can be considered as a prerequisite for being a muhaddith. Every narrator who wanted to learn hadiths attended hadith counciles by visiting muhaddiths in various science centers and learned the hadiths of their teachers. Although the origin of the rihla activities was the study of hadith, hadith students/narrators learned the lives of their teachers and developed rij & amacr;l literature with works such as tabaq & amacr;t, tazkirah, ma & scedil;yaha, ter & amacr;jim, vafay & amacr;t, man & amacr;qib. In addition, by recording the historical and geographical information about the places they went, they contributed to the formation of a rich heritage in terms of other branches of science. Muhaddiths, who carried out the rihle activities, provided rich information about these sciences and played an important role in the recognition of cities and regions. However, a study examining the effect of rihla activities on geographical works could not be found. Based on this deficiency, the subject of the study is to identify the muhaddiths from whom Ab & umacr; `Abdill & amacr;h Ibn alFaqih, who died in the fourth century, received information about geographical regions in his book Qitab alBuld & amacr;n. This book was chosen because it was written in the first four centuries when rihla activities continued intensively. The aim of the study is to reveal the contributions of the muhaddiths participating in the rihla activity to Islamic Geographer with concrete evidence as determined in the preliminary study. When this purpose is realized, it will be determined that the tradition of rihla, which has a very important place in the science of hadith, is not limited to the science of hadith, but also a source of many sciences, especially Islamic Geographer. In the study, by scanning the relevant work, those who were muhaddith were identified among the people to whom & Idot;bn al-Faqih conveyed information. Then, brief information about these muhaddiths was given from the books of tabaqat and tarajim, their narrations in hadith sources were mentioned, and Ibn al-Faqih's quotes from them were mentioned. As a result of the study, it was determined that & Idot;bn al-Faqih had 18 muhaddith sources. Among these, the muhaddiths that Ibn al-Faqih benefited from the most are Ab & umacr; Sa`id al-Asma`i with twelve, Ab & umacr; `Amr `& Amacr;mir b. Shar & amacr;hil al-Sha`bi with eight, Ibr & amacr;him b. `Uyayna al-K & umacr;fi and Abu'l-Abbas Isa b. Muhammad b. Isa alMarwazi with three each. Ibn al-Faqih conveyed only one piece of information from each of the twelve muhaddiths. When we look at the information conveyed by Ibn al-Faqih from muhaddith sources, it is seen that in addition to some topographic information, there is also important information about human and physical geography, the sub-branches of the science of Geography. The information conveyed by historical sources can be about the geographical features of the relevant city, as well as the political events that took place in that city, the events that happened in the city, and the wars that took place in the city. Based on the data obtained as a result of the study, it was understood that the rihlas made to learn hadith were not limited to this purpose only, but also information about the political and sociocultural situation, especially the geographical information of the cities visited, was collected and transferred. It would be beneficial to subject this study, which is only based on a single work, to wider studies in order to reveal the broad contribution of rihle activities to the Islamic scientific tradition.