Abd al-Majīd b. Nasūh al-Āmāsī and His Forty Hadīth Treatise Titled Safā al-Sālihīn

The forty hadīth literature started to flourish in the Islamic world from the late second century AH and gradually evolved into a well-established tradition, leaving multifaceted impacts across religious, mystical, social, and literary domains. Upon examining the compilations authored in this genre, it becomes evident that the hadīth reporting that those who memorize forty hadīths attributed to the Prophet will be resurrected among the ranks of the scholars on the Day of Judgment has played a significant motivational role in the formation of such collections. Nevertheless, forty hadīth compilations are not mere assemblages of arbitrarily selected narrations; rather, they have been regarded as refined texts serving the spiritual discipline of the individual and the moral edification of society, thereby attaining a distinguished place within the tradition of Islamic thought and education. In the intellectual and cultural life of the Ottoman Empire, works centered on the Prophet contributed decisively to the deep-rootedness of love and devotion toward him within the collective memory of society. In addition to reinforcing personal religiosity, such works played a significant role in institutionalizing and embedding the love of the Prophet in the hearts of people, extending from mosque pulpits to madrasa curricula, from Sufi gatherings to courtly literature. In this context, the Prophet Muhammad came to be embraced as a shared value at the heart of collective identity, ethical ideals, and literary expression in Ottoman society. The work Safā al-Sālihīn by Abd al-Majīd b. Nasūh is among the notable examples of this genre, as it serves as a bridge between the forty hadīth tradition and popular piety. Despite the fact that the forty hadīth works authored by Abd al-Majīd b. Nasūh, who lived in sixteenth-century Amasya, possess remarkable qualities both in content and form, their place within the forty hadīth literature of the Ottoman period has yet to be examined in detail. The study evaluates the structural features, commentary method, and sources of Safā al-Sālihīn, while also analyzing its contribution to the mission of religious guidance within the context of the relationship between scholars and the broader public. Accordingly, the study examines the work’s content, organizational structure, selection of hadīths, exegetical methods, use of sources, and linguistic features; furthermore, it assesses the text’s structural coherence through its ethical and Sufi emphases. The study seeks to present a comprehensive analysis of the work in terms of both form and substance. In this context, the author’s unique contribution to the literature is also evaluated. The author cites the narrations by mentioning only the Companion transmitters, omitting the remainder of the chain of transmission. Nevertheless, he is careful to select hadīths that are found in the authentic hadīth collections. His method of selecting and presenting the hadīths is shaped primarily by al-Saghānī’s Mashārīq al-Anwār, while his commentaries draw predominantly on Ibn Malak’s Mabāriq al-Azhār and Akmal al-Dīn al-Babartī’s Tuhfat al-Abrār.