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What is your opinion of the book "Sifat al-Safwa" in terms of its coverage of scholars, worshippers, and saints who are रोल मॉडल्स, and their sayings and expressions?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The book "Sifat al-Safwah" by Ibn al-Jawzi is an abridgment of Abu Nu'aym's book "Hilyat al-Awliya'", and it contained weak stories. Ibn Taymiyyah evaluated both books and said about Abu Nu'aym's "Hilyat al-Awliya'": "It is one of the best books written on the accounts of ascetics, and what is transmitted in it is more authentic than what is transmitted in al-Qushayri's Risala and al-Sulami's works." However, he mentioned that the book "Al-Zuhd" by Imam Ahmad and Ibn al-Mubarak is more authentic in narration than "Al-Hilya". He added that these books contain weak, even false, narrations and stories, and that "Al-Hilya" contains some of these, but what is found in other such books is more than what is in it. He pointed out that "Sifat al-Safwah" transmitted from the same genre as "Al-Hilya", and that most of what is in both books is sound, yet they contain false narrations and stories. As for "Al-Zuhd" by Imam Ahmad and similar works, they do not contain as many fabricated narrations and stories as these books.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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