Mu'jam al-Mudallisin

Mu'jam al-Mudallisin (Dictionary of Obfuscating Narrators) is a biographical reference work on hadith narrators characterized by tadlis (obfuscation in narration), compiled by the contemporary scholar Muhammad ibn Tal'at al-Qism al-Thani min al-M…+1.

Scope and Structure

The book is arranged as a biographical dictionary of transmitters who have been accused of or described as practicing tadlis al-Qism al-Thani min al-M…+1. It includes an introductory section addressing theoretical issues related to tadlis, including:

• The distinction between different categories of concealment, such as tadlis al-isnad (chain concealment), tadlis al-shuyukh (concealment or alteration of teachers' identifiers), and tadlis al-taswiyyah (leveling concealment) Mu'jam al-Mudallisin+1.
• The use of the term tadlis by early critical authorities (al-mutaqaddimun) to denote irsal (expedited transmission) or al-irsal al-khafiy (hidden transmission from contemporaries) al-Qism al-Thani min al-M…+1.
• The legal and methodological rulings concerning the narrations of transmitters who use the ambiguous transmission term 'an ('an'anah) Mu'jam al-Mudallisin+1.

In the individual biographical entries, the author analyzes the claims made by early and later critics—such as al-Nasa'i, Ibn Hibban, al-Daraqutni, al-Hakim al-Naysaburi, al-Ala'i, and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani—and examines which tier (martabah) each transmitter occupies al-Qism al-Thani min al-M…+1.

Methodology and Content

In his entries, Muhammad ibn Tal'at evaluates whether a critic's label of tadlis is absolute or restricted to specific teachers, and whether the alleged omission was intentional (which is required for tadlis) or caused by poor memory and error al-Qism al-Thani min al-M…+1. For instance:

• He responds to al-Nasa'i's characterizations by noting that al-Nasa'i sometimes applied unqualified descriptions of tadlis to narrators whose practice was restricted to specific teachers al-Qism al-Thani min al-M….
• In discussing narrators such as Marwan ibn Mu'awiyah al-Fazari, he distinguishes between tadlis al-shuyukh and tadlis al-isnad, arguing that earlier critics only attributed tadlis al-shuyukh to him, which does not necessitate rejecting the narrator's 'an'anah Mu'jam al-Mudallisin.
• He refutes the attribution of tadlis al-taswiyyah to transmitters like Mus'ab ibn Sa'id al-Massisi, concluding that his omission of intermediaries resulted from inadvertent memory lapses rather than deliberate obfuscation Mu'jam al-Mudallisin.

Publication

The work was published in a single volume by Dar Adwa' al-Salaf in Riyadh, with its first edition appearing in 1426 AH / 2005 CE Takhrij Ahadith wa Athar …+1.