The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays

The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays (Arabic: كِتَاب سُلَيْم بن قَيْس, romanized: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays) is the oldest known Shia hadith collection. It was attributed to Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilali (died 678), who purportedly entrusted it to Aban ibn Abi Ayyash.^[1]

Scholars consider the attribution of this work to Sulaym ibn Qays, who himself may have been a legendary figure, to be false.^[2] The earliest known reference to the book was in the Kitāb al-Ghayba by Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Nu'mani (tenth century).^{[3][better source needed]}

The precise dating of the work is not clear. Hossein Modarressi dates the original core of this work to the final years of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik's reign (r. 723–743), which would make it one of the oldest Islamic books that are still extant.^[4] However, it contains many later additions and alterations of unknown date, which may render it impossible to reconstruct the original text.^[5] Two individual passages which have been the subject of a case study have been dated to c. 762-780 and to the late 8th/early 9th century, respectively.^[6]

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