al-Raf wa al-Takmil
- Author died
- 1304 AH
- Editions
- Maktab al-Maṭbū‘āt al-Islāmiyyah
al-Raf wa al-Takmil fi al-Jarh wa al-Ta'dil (The Elevation and Completion in Narrator Disparagement and Accreditation) is a specialized treatise on the principles and methodology of Hadith narrator criticism by the Indian Hanafi scholar Abu al-Hasanat al-Lakhnawi (1264–1304 AH / 1848–1886 CE) .
Background and Motivation
Al-Lakhnawi authored the work to address what he described as reckless and uninformed practices among many contemporary scholars and students of Hadith . He observed that many were declaring authentic chains of transmission (asānīd) weak and weak ones sound due to ignorance of the fundamental principles of narrator evaluation (al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl) . He noted that such individuals assumed extracting evaluations from major biographical reference works—such as al-Mizzi’s Tahdhib al-Kamal, al-Dhahabi’s Mizan al-I'tidal, Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani’s Tahdhib al-Tahdhib and Taqrib al-Tahdhib, and Ibn Adi’s al-Kamil fi Du'afa al-Rijal—was straightforward, while they remained unaware of the specialized terminologies of the critic-imams and unable to distinguish between unspecified (mubham) and specified criticism or to recognize the differing tendencies and ranks of the early critics .
Structure and Scope
The treatise was structured into an introduction (muqaddimah) addressing fundamental preliminary matters, followed by a series of detailed thematic points and observations termed marāṣid (sing. marṣad) . In these sections, al-Lakhnawi systematically synthesized and analyzed the rules and insights formulated by both earlier (mutaqaddimūn) and later (muta'akhkhirūn) Hadith scholars . The work examines the levels and categories of disparagement and accreditation, the nuances of specific evaluative expressions used by early critics like al-Bukhari, the handling of conflicting judgments on narrators, and the critical standards of scholars categorized as strict, moderate, or lenient .
Modern Publication and Reception
Al-Raf wa al-Takmil came to be regarded as a pioneering and foundational reference on the methodology and canons of narrator criticism . The book gained widespread circulation through the scholarly edition prepared and heavily annotated by the Syrian scholar Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda .
Abu Ghudda first published his edition in Aleppo in 1383 AH / 1963 CE (running to 272 pages), followed by a second edition in 1388 AH / 1968 CE (394 pages), and expanded third and fourth editions that reached 564 pages, including an extensive biographical study of al-Lakhnawi compiled from his various autobiographical writings . While the original base text of the treatise occupied around twenty pages, Abu Ghudda's exhaustive commentary and supplementary documentation turned it into a standard modern textbook on narrator criticism .
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