Mujam Asami Shuyukh Abi Bakr al-Ismaili
- Author died
- 371 AH
- Editions
- Maktabat al-ʿUlūm wa-al-Ḥikam
Mu'jam Asami Shuyukh Abi Bakr al-Ismaili (معجم أسامي شيوخ أبي بكر الإسماعيلي, "Dictionary of the Names of Abu Bakr al-Ismaili's Teachers") is a biographical hadith dictionary by the Shafi'i jurist and hadith master Abu Bakr al-Ismaili (277–371 AH / 890–981 CE) . The work records the scholars from whom al-Ismaili studied, heard, or transcribed hadith, accompanied by sample narrations and critical appraisals .
Scope and Structure
The work was composed in a single compact volume containing entries for approximately three hundred teachers . Al-Ismaili organized the entries alphabetically according to the Arabic alphabet (huruf al-mu'jam) to make the material accessible to students and to help resolve ambiguities or confusion regarding teachers' names .
In addition to adult transmissions, al-Ismaili included records of authorities from whom he had transcribed dictation in his own hand during childhood in 283 AH, when he was six years old . He noted that he recorded them according to his handwriting and capacity at that age, though he refrained from transmitting narrations from that initial childhood tier in his other substantive hadith compilations .
Methodology
Al-Ismaili outlined his methodology in the preface of the book, stating that he sought divine guidance (istikhara) to compile an exhaustive registry of teachers from whom he heard hadith, transcribed texts, or read back transmissions :
- Sample narrations: Under each teacher, he restricted himself to transmitting a single report—either a rare narration (yustaghrab), an informative narration (yustafad), a well-received tradition (yustahsan), or a biographical anecdote (hikayah)—aiming to create a collection where the cited reports serve as scholarly benefits in their own right .
- Narrator evaluation: He provided critical evaluations (jarh wa-ta'dil) for figures whose methodology he censured, explicitly clarifying when a narrator was guilty of manifest fabrication, suspected of dishonesty, or excluded from the ranks of authentic traditionists due to ignorance or negligence . Narrators whose defects were obvious to him were excluded from being used in his primary hadith works .
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