Sunan An-Nabi
A Collection Of Narrations On The Conduct And Customs Of The Noble Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings upon him and his Family) - comiled by Allamah Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Taba’taba’i - translated by Tahir Ridha Jaffer)
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Al Musawwir
Huwa Allah, Creator, Originater, Shaper (Al Musawwir), To Hu belong The Most Beautiful Names (Quran 59.24).
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June 10th, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Peace,
We would be interested in having any comments or thoughts on this publication from those who have read it.
June 10th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Salaam Alaikum,
This is a very good, sensitively done translation, with great care given to try and best approximate the narratives. The fact that this is a collection by one of the greatest Islamic scholars: Allama Tabatabai, makes this book all the more valuable.
While there are a number of translations of the ahadith collected by Shi’as - unfortunately, they end up sounding choppy in English, because of the way they have been translated. This work stands out in this respect, that the translator has taken care to make sure the message is being carried over into the English language.
The narratives themselves are beautiful, and gives a wonderful view of the Sunna of the Prophet (peace and blessings upon him and his Family) . The supplications and dua section of the book also has the original Arabic text - this allows the reader to also memorize the duas in the original Arabic.
I have two quibbles:
1) I would have liked to see the book include the Arabic text. These days many English speakers, esp. Muslims, are studying Arabic, or have some basic knowledge about the language. And it is useful to read the ahadith in the original language - this helps with getting a deeper level of understanding of each of the hadith.
2) There was one part of the publisher’s preface that I questioned, and felt that more context should have been given:
“The Noble Prophet never attempted to retaliate against the insults… his reaction to the torment and disregard of the ignorant people was forgiveness and tolerance.”
I think this was written with the various controversies of our times (esp. the cartoon controversy) in mind. It is important to contextualize the above, that while the Prophet (pbuh) forgave insults when they were only directed at him, he took, and encouraged action when the rights of the Muslim community was at stake.
A hadith from the book itself might help to add some context:
“The world and its disappointments never made the Prophet of Islam, peace and blessings upon him and his Family, angry. But when someone’s rights were usurped, he would become so angry that nobody would recognise him and nothing would stand in his way until he had helped him (regain the usurped rights). ( Sunan An-Nabi, by Allama Tabatabai, ch. 1, #17, narration attributed to Imam Husayn (AS))”
June 20th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Salaam Alaikum,
Thank you very much for the comment - yes, perhaps we should have gone into abit more of a discussion on that point as you are correct that the Prophet (or anyone for that matter from amongst the Ma’sumeen) can forgive and be tolerant when they are wronged, however when the community has oppression on them, then that is another issue.
We will keep it in mind for a future printing, God Willing.