One fact, taken apart
بيت المآثر
Preserving and presenting the enduring legacy of Islamic scholarship.
Islamic knowledge, where every statement shows its source.
Bayt al-Maʾāthir brings the texts, the scholars and the prophets of our tradition into view, built on the Qurʾān and the authentic Sunnah. Each fact carries the book, the edition, the page and the exact Arabic words it rests on, so you can check it yourself.
A work in progress. These projects grow and are corrected as we go. Every record shows how far it has been checked, and the progress log below says what changed and what comes next.
قُلْ هَاتُوا بُرْهَانَكُمْ إِن كُنتُمْ صَادِقِينَ
الإسناد من الدين، ولولا الإسناد لقال من شاء ما شاء
The works
Three rooms so far, each with its own subject and colour.
Each project lives on its own address under baytalmaathir.com. They share one way of working and one look, and each one handles a different part of the tradition: the texts students memorise, the scholars who carried the knowledge, and the prophets as the Qurʾān and Sunnah describe them.
MutūnMutūn Ṭālib al-ʿIlm · listen, study, memorise
The core texts of the student of knowledge, fully vowelled and synchronised with their recitation. Tap any line to hear it, loop a single bayt until it sits, hide the text to test yourself, and read the official English translation and explanation beside the Arabic.
- Synchronised reader
- Memorisation mode
- Original page view
- Full-text search
- English layer & sharḥ
- EN · NL · العربية
- 15
- texts across levels 2–5 of the official curriculum
- 97–100%
- of words matched to the recitation, per book
- 377/384
- Qurʾānic quotations identified as verse text
- 4
- texts with the official English translation aligned
Text from the official edition by Shaykh ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Qāsim, decoded from his PDFs and cross-checked against an independent edition (95% word agreement; the rest are edition variants).
Live · levels 6–7 comingAʿlāmScholar atlas of the people of the Sunnah
Where the scholars lived and travelled, whom they heard from and who heard from them. Move through the centuries on a map with historical place names, follow a teacher’s students through the generations, and open any fact to read al-Dhahabī’s own words with volume and page.
- Atlas with era slider
- Timeline of lifespans
- Teacher–student network
- Books & attributions
- Hijri / Gregorian
- EN · NL · العربية
- 218
- scholars on the research roster
- 133
- matched to a biography; 34 reviewed by hand
- 496
- claims, each quoted from its source
- 8
- classical biographical works indexed by page
Built on Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ (Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 3rd ed.), with al-Istīʿāb, al-Iṣābah, Tārīkh al-Islām and later ṭabaqāt for scholars outside its range. Disagreements are kept, never averaged.
Live · 85 entries still being researchedMasār al-AnbiyāʾThe prophets, told from revelation
The prophets named in the Qurʾān, their peoples and lands, told only from the Qurʾān, the authentic Sunnah and trusted tafsīr. Every paragraph of a story is tied to its evidence. Places show how certain the identification is, and nothing is dated or located beyond what the sources say.
- Prophet profiles
- Atlas of peoples & places
- Verses with tafsīr
- Ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth cards
- Connections
- Lessons (fawāʾid)
- 25+4
- prophets named in the Qurʾān, plus four figures kept apart
- 339
- claims with their Arabic evidence
- 1,219
- verses with al-Saʿdī, al-Muyassar and Ibn Kathīr
- 50
- ḥadīth from al-Bukhārī and Muslim
Under review: the profiles of Ṣāliḥ, Ibrāhīm and Mūsā are with a person of knowledge for review. All English wording stays marked as a research draft until that review is done.
Pilot · in scholarly reviewPrinciples
The rules every project is held to.
These are written into the research rules of each project and checked by its build. A record that breaks one of them does not reach the site.
المصدر أولاً
Source first
Every statement carries its evidence: the work, the edition, the volume and page, and a short exact quotation in Arabic. The build searches for each quotation in the source text and stops if it cannot find it.
الكتاب والسنة
Qurʾān and authentic Sunnah
Revelation comes first, then authentic ḥadīth, then the understanding of the Companions and the scholars of the Sunnah. Ḥadīth grades come from the collections or a named grader, never typed in by us.
لا نخترع
Nothing invented
Where the sources are silent, we say “unknown” or leave it out. No guessed dates, no route lines between undated places, no detail filled in from Isrāʾīliyyāt or outside history.
الخلاف محفوظ
Disagreements kept
When the sources differ, each report is kept with whoever transmitted it: al-Zuhrī’s birth in 50, 51 or 56; al-Shāfiʿī born in Gaza or ʿAsqalān. Nothing is averaged into a single answer.
الحالة ظاهرة
Status on every record
You can always see how far a fact has been checked: found by a script, reviewed by a person, or verified against the printed page. Unchecked material is labelled, or hidden by default.
المنهج مفتوح
Open method
Each project has a Sources & Method page listing what was used, which edition, under what licence, and how the data was built. Errors can be reported from any page.
Method
How a fact gets in.
The same six steps run through all three projects. They come from the research rules of Aʿlām and have become the workflow for the whole house.
Search
Look in Arabic, in the primary works first, for what the sources say about a person, a text or an event.
Locate
Pin it to a fixed place: volume and page in a named edition, an āyah, a ḥadīth number, a page of the official PDF.
Verify
Check identity and context: the right person, the right year, the narration really reaching the Prophet ﷺ.
Extract
Take only the few exact words that carry the fact, with the reporter and any doubt the author himself states.
Cite
Attach the citation so a reader can open the passage, see it in its context and follow the link to the text.
Store
Save the record with its status. Each build re-finds every quotation; one that fails stops the release.
What machines do here
- Decode the official Mutūn PDFs into text, letter by letter.
- Time the verified text to the recitation. Speech recognition is used for timing only, never as a source of text.
- Find candidate passages in large biographical works.
- Check every quotation against its source on each build.
What only people decide
- Whether a passage really is about this scholar or this prophet.
- Promoting a record from extracted to reviewed or verified.
- Wording of the stories in Masār, reviewed by a person of knowledge.
- What stays out when the evidence is not strong enough.
Mutūn
- Official text
- The matn exactly as in al-Qāsim’s edition. Verses that cannot be confirmed are shown as the printed glyphs, never retyped.
- Aligned
- Each line timed to the recitation; the few lines missing from a recording are marked.
Aʿlām
- Verified
- Checked against the scan of the printed page.
- Reviewed
- A person checked the passage in the e-text. Shown by default.
- Extracted · Catalogue
- Found by a script, or listed in OpenITI only. Shown in the Expanded view.
Masār al-Anbiyāʾ
- Scholarly reviewed
- Reviewed by a person of knowledge, with the requested corrections applied.
- Research draft
- Researched and machine-checked, waiting for that review. Marked on the site with a banner.
Sources
Where the knowledge comes from.
The works and data the projects are built on, with the edition used and the terms it is shared under. Each project’s own Sources page goes deeper, down to the file and version.
| Work | Edition or provider | Terms | Used in |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qurʾān and tafsīr | |||
| The Qurʾānالقرآن الكريم | Tanzil text, Uthmani for display, used verbatim | CC BY 3.0 | MutūnMasār |
| Translations of the meaningsترجمات معاني القرآن | QuranEnc: Saheeh International, Dutch translation; version shown | Verbatim, attributed | Masār |
| Tafsīr al-Saʿdī, al-Muyassar, Ibn Kathīrتفسير السعدي · الميسر · ابن كثير | Tafsir Center database; Ibn Kathīr’s editor notes removed | CC BY 4.0 | Masār |
| al-Mukhtaṣar fī Tafsīr al-Qurʾānالمختصر في التفسير | Benefits (fawāʾid) from the pages of each prophet’s own passages | Quoted, attributed | Masār |
| Ḥadīth | |||
| Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī · Ṣaḥīḥ Muslimالصحيحان | Arabic text; Muslim by ʿAbd al-Bāqī numbering | Classical text | Masār |
| Abū Dāwūd, al-Tirmidhī, al-Nasāʾīسنن أبي داود والترمذي والنسائي | Registered; a narration is used only with a verified grading and named grader | Classical text | Masār |
| Texts of the student of knowledge | |||
| Mutūn Ṭālib al-ʿIlmمتون طالب العلم | Official PDFs and recitations of Shaykh ʿAbd al-Muḥsin al-Qāsim; official English editions | Attributed; permission requested | Mutūn |
| Taysīr al-Wuṣūlتيسير الوصول | al-Qāsim’s explanation of al-Uṣūl al-Thalāthah, English (IslamHouse) | Attributed | Mutūn |
| Biographies of the scholars | |||
| Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, al-Dhahabīسير أعلام النبلاء | Muʾassasat al-Risālah, 3rd ed. 1405/1985, via OpenITI; pagination matches the print | CC BY-NC-SA 4.0; short quotations only | Aʿlām |
| Tārīkh al-Islām, al-Dhahabīتاريخ الإسلام | ed. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, Dār al-Gharb al-Islāmī 2003 | Short quotations | Aʿlām |
| al-Istīʿāb · al-Iṣābahالاستيعاب · الإصابة | Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (ed. al-Bajāwī); Ibn Ḥajar (Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyyah) | Short quotations | Aʿlām |
| Later ṭabaqātكتب الطبقات المتأخرة | Ibn Rajab’s Dhayl, al-Durar al-Kāminah, al-Ḍawʾ al-Lāmiʿ, al-Kawākib al-Sāʾirah | Short quotations | Aʿlām |
| Places and maps | |||
| al-Thurayyā gazetteerالثريا: معجم المواضع | Historical places of the Islamic world, with coordinates | CC BY 4.0 | Aʿlām |
| Natural Earth · Wikidata | Coastlines and rivers; coordinates for undisputed modern places only | Public domain · CC0 | AʿlāmMasār |
Not used as evidence: biblical material, archaeology or secular history for the prophets, and text written by AI. Machine tools help find and time things; they are never the source of a statement.
Progress
Built in the open, one step at a time.
A short log of recent work. Each project keeps its full progress notes, including what is still unresolved and why.
- Bayt al-Maʾāthir
This page is now in English, Dutch and Arabic: switch with EN · NL · ع at the top, as on the sister sites.
- Masār al-Anbiyāʾ
Pilot profiles of Ṣāliḥ, Ibrāhīm and Mūsā frozen and handed to reviewers, with a printable report showing every claim and its evidence. All twelve rule tests pass.
- Aʿlām
New design for home, scholar, atlas and network pages. Manual research decisions imported; the 85 unresolved scholars are each filed in a named research queue.
- Aʿlām
Companions resolved through al-Istīʿāb and al-Iṣābah; medieval scholars through Tārīkh al-Islām. A death year is only accepted from a sentence that states it.
- Mutūn
Official English translation aligned line by line, al-Qāsim’s own explanation of al-Uṣūl al-Thalāthah attached, full-text search and shareable links to any line.
- Aʿlām
First release: 36 scholars and 221 claims from the Siyar, every quotation re-found in al-Dhahabī’s text.