al-Harawi, Abu al-Fadl
- Died
- 405 AH
- Born in
- -
Abu al-Fadl al-Harawi (d. 405 AH / 1014–1015 CE) was a Hadith scholar and onomastic specialist from Herat, best known for his biographical dictionary on homonymous and easily confused narrator names, Mushtabah Asami al-Muhaddithin.
Identity and Scholarship
His full lineage is recorded as 'Ubayd Allah ibn 'Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Harawi, and he is also cited in biographical and bibliographic sources as 'Abd Allah ibn Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Harawi. While the death year of 405 AH (1014–1015 CE) is standardly recorded for him, other bibliographic traditions report him as having lived until circa 438 AH (1046–1047 CE).
As a specialist in the science of narrator identification (al-muʾtalif wa-l-mukhtalif and al-mushtabah), he compiled al-Muʿjam fi Mushtabah Asami al-Muhaddithin (The Dictionary of Ambiguous Names of Hadith Scholars) to disambiguate identical or similar names, patronymics, and lineages among traditionists. In this work, he clarified obscure figures and distinguished them from more prominent homonyms, such as differentiating Yahya ibn 'Abd al-Hamid al-Warraq al-Kufi—whom he noted as obscure—from other narrators with the same name. He also authored a supplementary volume titled al-Ziyadat al-Mawjudat min Kitab al-Muʿjam fi Mushtabah Asma' al-Muhaddithin.
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List of Works
Mushtabah Asami al-Muhaddithin, also known as al-Muʿjam fi Mushtabah Asami al-Muhaddithin, is an onomastic hadith work. The book is dedicated to distinguishing hadith scholars and narrators whose names, patronymics, or lineages are identical or prone to confusion.