Classical Ḥanbalī texts, from Hanbali fiqh classes to ʿaqīdah and ḥadīth, taught live by scholars and muʿīd who hold their knowledge through a written, verifiable chain. English, Arabic, Dutch, French.
Start where you actually are, not where you would like to be. Each one carries on into the next.
One text, taught from beginning to end by a qualified teacher. Every lesson covers the Arabic, a literal rendering, and the explanation, so you are taught the source rather than a summary. Recordings and materials stay yours after the term closes.
A shorter, denser form of study. One treatise, taken end to end over two weeks, read closely enough that it stays with you afterwards. Open entry, no prerequisite.
Al Madrasah writes and prints its own study materials: texts for beginners, and editions for those already working at depth. There are uniforms and other items too, for students who feel part of the house.
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A free library is in preparation: vocalised texts, glossaries, reading orders and recorded lessons, for anyone studying alone or with a teacher elsewhere.
Drag the shelf, or use the arrows.
What has been taught, what is being built, and what opens next.
In his concise and influential al-Mūqiẓah fī ʿIlm Muṣṭalaḥ al-Ḥadīth, al-Dhahabī discusses the case of a reliable narrator whose report conflicts with that of several other reliable narrators. He writes, in substance, that when a single established transmitter (thabt) relates a report in one form, while a number of other established transmitters (athbāt) contradict him, consideration should ordinarily be given to what the trustworthy narrators collectively agree upon. A single narrator may err, and numerical opposition may therefore indicate where the mistake lies.
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The history of hadith criticism is also a history of method. The discipline did not emerge fully formed, nor did its technical vocabulary develop independently of the juristic and intellectual environments in which hadith scholars worked. Its categories were gradually articulated, refined, contested, and eventually systematised. That systematisation gave hadith criticism much of its precision and durability. Yet it also raises a historical question that deserves greater attention: what happens when the methodological language of one school becomes so influential that it begins to appear indistinguishable from the discipline itself?
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There are disciplines one can advertise by stating what they contain. There are others for which this is almost impossible.
Read the article →Nothing here is a projection. These are texts finished, printed and taught.
No teacher here instructs without having studied under one himself. Every chain is written out in full on its own page.
If you do not know where you belong, write to us with what you have already studied. We will tell you plainly, even when the answer is that you should start again at the foundations.
