Kitab Taqyid al-'Ilm - Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi

This book is about putting traditions into writing; when did it begin and how did it begin. The book also tackles the issue of the Shari’ah ruling on putting traditions into writing, between permissibility and prohibition, and this is the main issue in the book.

This book contains (316) Hadith with Isnad; some of which are Marfu’ and some are below Marfu’. The author cited a number of chapters, whose content can be divided into four sections:

The first section: It contains the Hadiths against putting knowledge in writing.

The second section: The author provided the reasons for the prohibition of writing down knowledge.  

The third section: It contains the Hadiths in favour of putting knowledge in writing, and then shows that the book preserves knowledge.

The fourth section: He spoke about the virtue of books and what was mentioned about their acquisition and lending.

The author has listed the evidence of the first and second sections without commenting on them, and then proceeded to make some useful comments and brought various reports both in favour of and against putting Hadith in writing together and provided his own explanation for their existence.