Late sources of Rijal

[Hani]

Dear Mr. Hani,


           I hope you will receive my message in best of your health. I was reffered towards you by member ummarbin alkhatab. I am facing an a problem in research and understanding the authenticity of أسماء الرجال و الجرح التعديل books. My question is lengthy in past few days i was consulting scholars from madeenah munawara and syria via my social network and in pakistan as well but still i havent received any clarification. My question is that when we analyze a hadith and study it from critical point of view, first of all we evaluate the chain of narration and then its context after that it is given the level of saheeh or hassan or dhaeef etc. And for that we refer to books of Asmaa ur rijaal and jarah wa taadeel. But i need know what is the authenticity of those books because most of the Books very compiled in 7th-8th century Hijri e.g,


تهذيب الكمال
تهذيب التهذيب
تقريب التهذيب
اكمال التهذيب


Except the only book to my knowledge it was compiled in 3rd century hijri i.e ألجرح و التعديل للامام إبن ابي حاتم الرازي he is was born in 234 or 224 hirji and i checked its methodology of compilation where the author gives chain of narrators till Imam Yahya bin Maeen and he gives the ruling and judgement that so and so is kathaad or thiqaa etc. But even though the author in many places exempts the chain of narrators as well that is understood he might be doing for the purpose of breifing and condensing the book and Imam abu hatim razi and Imam abu zuraa alrazi are hujjaa in their fields.


But the question arises on the books compiled in 7-8th centuray hijri because in those  books as i previously mentioned the list it does not give the chain of narrators from whom they taken and thus they give only direct rulings. So im a little confused and doubtful. Can you help me understand this problem.


Best regards,

[Hani]

This question was one I received in a PM, I believe Farid is the most qualified to answer but I'll give my own.


Rijaal in the Madhab of Ahlul-Sunnah are judged by scholars who are expert Rijalists and those Muhadditheen that lived in their time.


The books you listed above (Relatively late) will for example list a guy and say, "Nasa'i said: Thiqah, Ibn Ma`een said: Laysa bil-Qawi."


Well my friend, this is because the authors of those Rijali books HAVE the books of Nasa'i and the books of Ibn Ma`een, and thus they copied their opinions from their popular books.


Earlier Rijaali books are the origin, don't you notice that Ahlul-Sunnah never accept the opinion of Ibn Hajar or Dhahabi if they say "So n so is Thiqah" If we can't find it in the earlier books nor attributed to an early Rijali?

[Nader Zaveri]

Assalaamu `Alaykum,

Hani, I would suggest for him to read the book Tahdheeb al-Kamaal fee Asmaa' al-Rijal by al-Mizzi, but specifically the one with the Tahqeeq done by Bashaar `Awaad. In his tahqeeq he gives the original sources of the statements and which one of their books did they receive these statements from.

Wa `Alaykum Assalam.

[Farid]

It is as Nader says, the sources of these quotes can be found in other published books today. Al-Bukhari, Ibn Abi Hatim, Al-Nasa'ee, Yahya, Ahmad, and most of the others have had their books published.

[Hani]

Has it been established what books/sources Tusi and Najashi used? Judging from the very small numbers of Tawtheeqat in both books, we do not have much reason to believe they had many of these "sources"?

[Farid]

I honestly think much of it is based on ijtihadaat. Nothing wrong with that though.