| Summary: | This paper introduces an accomplished Ḥanafī traditionist [<i>muḥaddith</i>] named Abū Ṭāhir ʿAbd al-Salām Ibn Abī al-Rabīʿ al-Shīrāzī (b.bef.590/1194, d.661/1263), and two newly-discovered manuscripts that shed light on his life, works, and networks. The first manuscript is an earlier copy of ʿUmar al-Suhrawardī’s (539-632/1145-1234) influential Sufi treatise, <i>Benefits of Intimate Knowledge</i> [<i>ʿAwārif al-Maʿārif</i>] that Abū Ṭāhir copied in 603/1206. In addition to updating the terminus ad quem of al-Suhrawardī’s masterpiece, the manuscript also preserves a significant audition [<i>samāʿ</i>] record. While Abū Ṭāhir transcribed this early copy, he seems to have neither participated in the later transmission of the work nor formed a Sufi identity. A well-connected traditionist who has not yet received scholarly attention, he wrote many works, none of which have been studied so far. This paper introduces his life and works, traces his immediate teachers and pupils in transmitting prophetic sayings, and analyzes a hitherto unstudied manuscript of his <i>Forty Sayings on the Virtue of Praying for the Messenger of God</i> [<i>Al-Arbaʿūn fī Faḍīlat al-Ṣalāt ʿalā Rasūl Allāh</i>]. The paper demonstrates that the study of al-Suhrawardī’s <i>ʿAwārif al-Maʿārif</i> by non-Sufi traditionists can be traced back to its earliest extant copy available to us.
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