Arba?in al-?Ala?i fi kalam al-?ali

In the history of Islamic literature, the 'Forty Traditions' genre goes back as far as the 3th/9th century at least and exists in all of Islam's major and minor languages. It finds its origin in the tradition saying that whoever commits forty traditions to memory will be reckoned among the jurists on Resurrection Day. Collections vary, from a simple listing of the basic teachings of Islam to more dedicated works around some specific theme, in either case with or without a commentary. There are also collections of sayings of the Prophet's son-in-law ?Ali b. Abi Talib (d. 40/661), from among which al-Sharif al-Radi's (d. 406/1088) Nahj al-Balagha is the most famous. The work by Yusuf b. Aybayk published here is a Persian text in the arba?un tradition but based on the Nahj al-balagha. Dedicated to the Qaramanid ruler of Anatolia ?Ala? al-Din Beg (d. 800/1397-8), it deals mostly with ethics explained from a mystical perspective.