Kanz al-Ummal: A Thematic Encyclopedia of Hadith
Kanz al-Ummal fi Sunan al-Aqwal wa al-Af'al is a large subject-arranged hadith compendium completed in 957 AH / 1550 CE by Ala al-Din Ali ibn Husam al-Din al-Muttaqi al-Hindi (d. 975 AH / 1567 CE). It reorganizes a wide body of earlier hadith material so reports can be located by topic rather than only by their opening words or narrators.
1. Source Works
The collection is based chiefly on Jalal al-Din al-Suyuti's al-Jami al-Saghir, its additions, and the larger Jam al-Jawami (also known as al-Jami al-Kabir). Al-Muttaqi first arranged portions of this material in intermediate works and then combined the project into Kanz al-Ummal.
2. Scope and Arrangement
The book covers belief, worship, law, manners, virtues, social conduct, supplication, governance, history, and many other subjects. Its topical books and chapters make a very large corpus easier to consult for research, teaching, sermons, and comparison of related reports.
3. Methodology
Al-Muttaqi's main contribution is organization and indexing. Entries retain al-Suyuti's compact source symbols and attributions, which point readers toward earlier collections, while related sayings, actions, and reports are brought together under shared headings. Individual reports still require evaluation through their cited sources and chains.
4. Scholarly Value
Because of its breadth and subject-based arrangement, Kanz al-Ummal remains an important reference work rather than a collection restricted to one authenticity grade. It serves as a gateway to narrations dispersed across many earlier hadith books.