Fi al-Siyagh al-Muhtamala lil-Tadlis -- A zahira hiya fi al-sama am la? - dimn Athar al-Muallimi
- Author died
- 1386 AH
- Editions
- Dar Alam al-Fawa'id lil-Nashr wa-al-Tawzi'
Fi al-Siyagh al-Muhtamala lil-Tadlis: A zahira hiya fi al-sama am la? (Treatise on the Formulas Prone to Concealment: Are They Apparent in Direct Audition or Not?) is a specialized hadith-methodology treatise by the Yemeni scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Muallimi al-Yamani (1312–1386 AH / 1894–1966 CE) addressing the evidential value of ambiguous transmission terms in hadith isnads .
Context and Publication
The treatise is included as the sixth work within the compendium Majmu al-Rasa'il al-Hadithiyya (volume 15 of Athar Abd al-Rahman ibn Yahya al-Mu'allimi al-Yamani), edited by Ali ibn Muhammad al-Umran . In the broader catalog of al-Mu'allimi's collected works, it is numbered as treatise forty-five .
Subject Matter and Style
The core subject of the treatise is whether ambiguous transmission terms used by narrators—such as "from so-and-so" ('an fulan), "so-and-so said" (qala fulan), or "so-and-so mentioned" (dhakara fulan)—inherently denote direct auditory reception (sama') or not .
Al-Mu'allimi begins the work with an extensive, four-page query framed in the voice of an external interlocutor asking for a ruling: "What is your opinion—may God have mercy upon you—regarding the saying of a hadith transmitter: 'from so-and-so' or 'so-and-so said' or 'so-and-so mentioned'..." . Although structured as an inquiry, the text was composed entirely by al-Mu'allimi himself to stage the debate as an exchange between two interlocutors or opposing stances—a literary technique he employed across several of his writings . The preliminary dialogue explores internal objections and responses to isolate the core point of contention (manat al-khilaf) and distill the precise theological and methodological dilemma requiring resolution .
Following the opening section, al-Mu'allimi presents his formal response, concluding that such ambiguous phrases are not inherently apparent in denoting direct audition (laysat zahiratan fi al-sama'). He substantiates his chosen preference and systematically refutes counterarguments that could be raised against it .
Transmission and State of the Text
The treatise is incomplete; only this surviving portion has been preserved and transmitted in manuscript form .
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