An excellent post from Ustadh Abu Eesa Ni`matullah on his occassionally humorous blog about the current revival of the practice of holding intense, marathon recitations of major hadith collections. My teacher, Shaykh Nizam Yaquby, told Shaykh Suheil Laher (MIT) and me, when he visited us at Harvard last year, about several blessed recitations of this type that he has attended. He mentioned, for example, a recitation of the entire Musnad Ahmad Ibn Hanbal under the supervision of the "Shaykh of the Hanbalis", Shaykh Abdullah Ibn `Aqil (may Allah preserve him!), in his home in Eastern Arabia! In fact, Shaykh Nizam will be attending a serial recitation of this type, in the Grand Mosque of Kuwait, from April 17 to 25. Private sessions start every morning and public sessions last from `Asr to 10pm at night!