Dhamm Dhi al-Wajhayn wa al-Lisanayn li-Ibn Asakir
- Author died
- 571 AH
- Editions
- Dar Ibn Hazm
Dhamm Dhi al-Wajhayn wa al-Lisanayn (The Dispraise of the Two-Faced and Two-Tongued Person) is a short hadith treatise by the Syrian hadith scholar Abu al-Qasim Ibn Asakir (d. 571 AH / 1176 CE), dedicated to the ethical condemnation of hypocrisy, double-dealing, and duplicity.
Origin and Transmission
The treatise forms the 127th session of Ibn Asakir's dictations (Amali). It was preserved and transmitted by his son, the hadith master Baha' al-Din Abu Muhammad al-Qasim ibn Ali ibn Asakir, through an audition read back to him in Jumada al-Ula 592 AH, which included an audition by Muhammad ibn Abi Ja'far ibn Ali al-Qurtubi.
Content and Method
The work compiles nineteen numbered narrations with full chains of transmission (isnad), incorporating prophetic traditions, reports from the early generations, and didactic poetry. Ibn Asakir opens the compilation with a hadith transmitted through his teachers in Nishapur and Herat from Abu Hurayrah, in which the Prophet ﷺ stated: تَجِدُ مِنْ شِرَارِ النَّاسِ عَنْدَ اللَّهِ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ الَّذِي يَأْتِي هَؤُلَاءِ بِحَدِيثِ هَؤُلَاءِ، وَهَؤُلَاءِ بِحَدِيثِ هؤلاء ("You will find among the worst of people before God on the Day of Resurrection the one who brings to these the speech of those, and to those the speech of these").
In addition to prophetic hadiths, the treatise records ethical sayings, such as the statement of Abd Allah ibn Dawud: "How shameful it is for a man to display to his brother the opposite of what is in his heart." It concludes with poetic verses condemning disloyalty and false friendship by Hilal ibn al-Ala al-Raqqi and Ibrahim ibn al-Abbas, the latter transmitted through Abu Bakr ibn Abi al-Dunya.
Manuscripts and Publication
Manuscripts of the text are preserved in collections including the Zahiriyya Library in Damascus (MS 3758/21) and the Central Library in Mecca (MS 631/14). The treatise was edited by Mish'al ibn Bani al-Jibrin al-Mutayri and published by Dar Ibn Hazm in Beirut in 1422 AH / 2001 CE as part of a collective volume of five short works by Ibn Asakir.
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