al-Tadhyil ala Kutub al-Jarh wa al-Tadil
- Author died
- 1432 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-Muthanna al-Islamiyyah
al-Tadhyil ala Kutub al-Jarh wa al-Tadil (Arabic: التذييل على كتب الجرح والتعديل, lit. 'The Supplement to Books of Transmitter Criticism and Evaluation') is a contemporary biographical reference work on hadith transmitters by Tariq Al Naji (d. 1432 AH / 2011 CE) . The book supplements classical biographical dictionaries by compiling omitted transmitter assessments and supplying additional statements of authentication and disparagement (al-jarh wa al-tadil) .
Background and Publication History
The author, whose full name is given in the preface as Tariq ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim ibn Khalil Al Ibn Naji al-Qina'i, composed the work to facilitate research for students of hadith by bringing together scattered evaluations of narrators into a single compendium .
The first edition of the book appeared in 1420 AH (c. 1999–2000 CE), spanning 173 pages and containing nearly six hundred biographical entries . A second, revised and expanded edition was published in 1425 AH / 2004 CE by Maktabat al-Muthanna al-Islamiyya in Hawalli, Kuwait . For the second edition, the author added several hundred new entries, incorporated additional evaluations into existing biographies, and rephrased various passages . He also removed certain entries whose details he found fully addressed in standard works—such as Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's Lisan al-Mizan or al-Dhahabi's Siyar A'lam al-Nubala'—and pruned extraneous discussions of individual hadiths .
Scope and Structure
The entries in the book are organized alphabetically by narrator name, followed at the end by sections for patronymics (kuna), relations (al-abna'), and female narrators . Nicknames (al-alqab) are integrated directly into the main alphabetical sequence .
The author arranged the biographical profiles into two categories:
- Uncoded entries: Narrators whose names are not preceded by reference abbreviations. These profiles were gathered from diverse sources—such as questionnaire treatises (su'alat), specific hadith compendia, or works where narrators lacked explicit verdicts—and do not appear in the standard major biographical reference books (al-kutub al-ummahat) like al-Dhahabi's Mizan al-I'tidal or Ibn Hajar's Tahdhib al-Tahdhib . This group covers narrators omitted or left unassessed by Ibn Abi Hatim, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, and Ibn Asakir; narrators about whom additional evaluations exist outside those authors' books; figures listed solely in Ibn Hibban's al-Thiqat; and narrators whose entries are scattered across early texts .
- Coded entries: Narrators preceded by abbreviation symbols indicating the primary reference works from which their base entries were taken, to which the author adds supplementary critical material .
The abbreviation system corresponds to standard reference works:
- Tarikh al-Islam: al-Dhahabi's Tarikh al-Islam
- Tuhfa: al-Sakhawi's al-Tuhfa al-Latifa fi Tarikh al-Madina al-Sharifa
- Tis': Ibn Hajar's Ta'jil al-Manfa'a bi-Zawa'id Rijal al-A'imma al-Arba'a
- Dh: Zayn al-Din al-Iraqi's Dhayl al-Mizan
- Dhk: Wali al-Din al-Iraqi's Dhayl al-Kashif
- S: al-Dhahabi's Siyar A'lam al-Nubala'
- Suh: Ibn Hajar's al-Isaba fi Tamyiz al-Sahaba
- Ghin: Ibn al-Jazari's Ghayat al-Nihaya fi Tabaqat al-Qurra'
- L: Ibn Hajar's Lisan al-Mizan
- M: al-Dhahabi's Mizan al-I'tidal
- H: Ibn Hajar's Tahdhib al-Tahdhib and al-Mizzi's Tahdhib al-Kamal
Methodology
When citing base biographies from multiple sources, the author drew from the most comprehensive version and supplemented it from others . Square brackets ([...]) were employed to insert clarifications in narrator names (such as an omitted patronymic, kunya, or nisba), to correct misreadings and typographical errors occurring in printed editions, or to restore fractured critical statements into their original context .
To keep entries concise, the author often condensed the imported biographies by excising extended lists of teachers and students and leaving out examples of weak or denounced narrations cited by al-Dhahabi or Ibn Hajar . Personal additions and newly introduced citations were distinguished by beginning the line with "Qultu" (قلت, 'I say') . Critical commentary or methodological points are marked with terms like Fa'ida (فائدة, 'Benefit') or Tanbih (تنبيه, 'Notice') . Dates of birth and death were recorded in numerals rather than written words .
Reception
The work received commendations (taqariz) from several contemporary hadith scholars:
- Muhammad al-Amin Bu Khubza praised the compilation for filling gaps, detailing condensed entries, and extracting evaluations from primary transmitter sources, commending its contribution to refining judgments on transmitters .
- Hatim al-Awni (in a commendation written in Dhu al-Qi'da 1423 AH) highlighted the difficulty of exhaustive gathering in biographical studies and commended the book's reception among researchers upon its initial appearance in 1420 AH and its subsequent expansion .
- Muhammad Amr ibn Abd al-Latif (in a commendation finalized in Shawwal 1424 AH) deemed the book beneficial overall, while offering specific feedback on the first edition . He advised placing lines above text rather than underlining below, and criticized the conflation of Junayd ibn al-Ala ibn Abi Dahra with an un-attributed Junayd narrating from Ibn Umar . The author accepted this criticism and adopted Ibn Abd al-Latif's distinction between the two in the second edition .
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