Asma al-Mudallisin
- Author died
- 911 AH
- Editions
- Dār al-Jīl
Asma al-Mudallisin ("Names of the Hadith Concealers") is a concise biographical treatise on hadith narrators characterized by tadlis (the obfuscation of transmission sources) by the Egyptian scholar al-Jalal al-Suyuti (d. 911 AH / 1505 CE).
Purpose and Structure
In his opening remarks, al-Suyuti describes the work as a brief tract (risālah laṭīfah) compiling the names of hadith narrators described as practitioners of tadlis, arranged alphabetically according to the Arabic letters (ʿalā aḥruf al-muʿjam) to facilitate easy reference.
The text consists of seventy-one concise entries, opening with Ibrahim ibn Yazid al-Nakha'i and concluding with Abu Sa'd al-Baqqal Sa'id ibn al-Marzuban. In each entry, al-Suyuti cites the critical evaluations of earlier hadith authorities who identified the narrator's practice of tadlis—such as Ahmad ibn Hanbal, al-Nasa'i, Ibn Hibban, al-Hakim al-Naysaburi, al-Khatib al-Baghdadi, and al-Dhahabi—frequently noting specific transmissions or the manner of concealment attributed to each figure.
Scholarly Context
The work belongs to a specialized genre of hadith criticism devoted to identifying narrators who practiced tadlis, following earlier monographs and treatises by scholars such as al-Karabisi, al-Nasa'i, al-Daraqutni, Sibt Ibn al-Ajami, and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani. Manuscript copies of the tract have survived in several repositories, including the Al-Azhar Library and the Egyptian National Library (Dar al-Kutub) in Cairo, the Süleymaniye Library in Istanbul, the General Library in Rabat, and the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies in Riyadh.
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