Al-Adab Al-Mufrad
Book 53, Hadith 1
أَخْبَرَنَا شُعَيْبُ بْنُ أَبِي حَمْزَةَ، قَالَ: حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو الزِّنَادِ، عَنِ الأَعْرَجِ، عَنْ أَبِي هُرَيْرَةَ، أَنَّ رَسُولَ اللهِ صلى الله عليه وسلم قَالَ: اخْتَتَنَ إِبْرَاهِيمُ صلى الله عليه وسلم بَعْدَ ثَمَانِينَ سَنَةً، وَاخْتَتَنَ بِالْقَدُومِ قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ اللهِ: يَعْنِي مَوْضِعًا.
Unreviewed translation. All hadiths in this collection are available in five languages. Titles and introductions may remain in Arabic.
Shu‘ayb ibn Abi Hamzah informed us: Abu al-Zinad related to us, from al-A‘raj, from Abu Hurayrah, that the Messenger of Allah, Allah bless him and grant him peace, said: ‘Ibrahim, Allah bless him and grant him peace, circumcised himself when he was eighty years old, using a qadum.’ Abu ‘Abd Allah said: ‘He means a place.’
Notes and open questions — unreviewed
The source includes an explicit gloss that qadum means a place; the English witness instead gives the familiar sense “axe.” The wording may preserve an ambiguity or variant gloss.
وَاخْتَتَنَ بِالْقَدُومِ قَالَ أَبُو عَبْدِ اللهِ: يَعْنِي مَوْضِعًا
Qadum can be understood as a tool (an axe) or a place name; the source explicitly adds the gloss “a place.”
Should qadum be retained in transliteration with the source gloss, or rendered as the tool in the main text?