Abu Ja'far Muhammad ibn 'Ali ibn Babawayh al-Qummi, commonly referred to as Ibn Babawayh or al-Shaykh al-Saduq was a Persian Shia Islamic scholar whose work, entitled Man La Yahduruhu al-Faqih, forms part of The Four Books of the Shia Hadith collection.

Hadith or Athar refers to what most Muslims and the mainstream schools of Islamic thought believe to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the Islamic prophet Muhammad as transmitted through chains of narrators. In other words, the ḥadīth are attributed reports about what Muhammad said and did.