Ibn Shahin
Dhikr man ikhtalafa al-ulama wa nuqqad al-hadith fihi
- Author died
- 385 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat Adwa' al-Salaf
Dhikr man ikhtalafa al-ulama wa nuqqad al-hadith fihi (Account of Those Regarding Whom the Scholars and Hadith Critics Disagreed) is a biographical hadith work by the Baghdadi scholar Ibn Shahin (d. 385 AH / 995 CE) evaluating disputed narrators.
Purpose and Scope
The fuller title of the work is Dhikr man ikhtalafa al-ulama wa nuqqad al-hadith fihi fa-minhum man waththaqahu wa-minhum man da‘‘afahu wa-man qila fihi qawlan (Account of Those Regarding Whom the Scholars and Hadith Critics Disagreed: Those Whom Some Declared Trustworthy and Others Declared Weak, and Those Concerning Whom Two Opinions Were Expressed). It is considered likely the earliest surviving monograph dedicated specifically to hadith narrators subject to conflicting evaluations (al-ruwat al-mukhtalaf fihim). Ibn Shahin stated in his opening that he compiled the biographical entries to clarify the differing verdicts of critics who deemed a narrator trustworthy, declared them weak, or held two conflicting opinions about them, so that their status could be recognized.
Method
For each biographical entry, Ibn Shahin cites transmitted statements from classical hadith critics—including Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Yahya ibn Ma'in, Sufyan al-Thawri, and Uthman ibn Abi Shayba—and then often appends his own critical commentary to weigh the divergent views. His evaluative principles include:
- Giving precedence to local critics who were better acquainted with a regional narrator, as when he favored the negative appraisal of Yazid ibn Harun over the endorsement of Muhammad ibn Abd Allah ibn Ammar regarding Asad ibn Amr al-Bajali.
- Considering the joint agreement of Ahmad ibn Hanbal and Yahya ibn Ma'in on a narrator decisive over conflicting statements from others.
- Suspending judgment (al-wuquf) when Ahmad and Ibn Ma'in disagree on a narrator until a third comparable authority provides corroborating testimony.
Reception and Preservation
Later hadith scholars made direct use of the book; Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani relied on it and cited Ibn Shahin's preferences across several biographical entries. Only an incomplete portion of the text has survived, preserved in a manuscript at the Muhammad ibn Yusuf Library in Marrakesh, Morocco.
The surviving text was first printed at the end of Hamza al-Sahmi's Tarikh Jurjan, edited by Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya al-Mu'allimi al-Yamani, after being preserved on extra folios within that work's manuscript. It was later published independently in Cairo, edited by Tariq ibn Iwad Allah Muhammad, and in Riyadh, edited by Hammad ibn Muhammad al-Ansari and Abd al-Bari al-Ansari, as well as in an edition by Abd al-Rahim al-Qashqari.
Answer updated