The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays

The Book of Sulaym ibn Qays (Arabic: كِتَاب سُلَيْم بن قَيْس, romanized: Kitāb Sulaym ibn Qays) is the oldest known Shia hadith collection. It was attributed to Sulaym ibn Qays al-Hilali (died 678), who purportedly entrusted it to Aban ibn Abi Ayyash.

Scholars consider the attribution of this work to Sulaym ibn Qays, who himself may have been a legendary figure, to be false. The earliest known reference to the book was in the Kitāb al-Ghayba by Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Nu'mani (tenth century).

The precise dating of the work is not clear. Hossein Modarressi dates the original core of this work to the final years of Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik's reign (r. 723–743), which would make it one of the oldest Islamic books that are still extant. However, it contains many later additions and alterations of unknown date, which may render it impossible to reconstruct the original text. Two individual passages which have been the subject of a case study have been dated to c. 762-780 and to the late 8th/early 9th century, respectively.