This is a book of answers, not a treatise written from scratch — and that distinction matters. In 1291/1875, while staying in Hyderabad Deccan, Imam al-Laknawī was posed ten questions on the hadith sciences by ʿAllāmah Muḥammad Ḥusayn al-Lāhawrī. His responses, gathered here, take up the place of the isnād in matters of religion, among other questions of hadith methodology.This edition carries annotations by Shaykh ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Abū Ghuddah. It is described as a crucial resource for anyone who works with hadith in any capacity, and it fills a real gap, since so little of this material has been available in English.The value here is less in a sweeping narrative and more in watching a scholar of Imam al-Laknawī's caliber work through ten genuine questions with the rigor the subject demands — the kind of text a student keeps returning to once the introductory books have been set aside, for the specific, careful reasoning it offers rather than for a general overview.
