Tabaqat al-Asma al-Mufrada min al-Sahaba wa al-Tabiin wa Ashab al-Hadith
- Author died
- 301 AH
- Editions
- Ṭalās lil-Dirāsāt wal-Tarjamah wal-Nashr
Tabaqat al-Asma al-Mufrada min al-Sahaba wa al-Tabiin wa Ashab al-Hadith ("Generations of Unique Names Among the Companions, Followers, and Hadith Scholars") is a biographical dictionary of hadith transmitters by the hadith master al-Bardiji (d. 301 AH / 914 CE), dedicated to identifying figures with unique personal names . It is considered the first book compiled specifically on unique narrator names (al-asma al-mufrada) as an independent work, a field previously scattered across broader biographical collections such as al-Bukhari's al-Tarikh al-Kabir and Ibn Abi Hatim's al-Jarh wa al-Ta'dil .
Subject and Structure
The book is structured into five chronological generations (tabaqat), beginning with the Companions (al-Sahaba), followed by the Successors (al-Tabiin), and subsequent generations of hadith scholars . Within these tiers, al-Bardiji documents transmitters whose given names were borne by no other known narrator in their class . For each entry, he typically records the transmitter's name, patronymic (kunya), and geographical nisba, occasionally mentioning one of their teachers or students as well as evaluating their narrations or status .
Reception and Critique
Later hadith scholars drew extensively upon the work while critically reviewing several of its entries . Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Ahmad ibn Bukayr al-Baghdadi authored a critical supplement titled Naqd Tabaqat al-Asma al-Mufrada, identifying instances where names listed by al-Bardiji were shared by two or more individuals rather than being unique, as well as entries that represented cognomens (alqab) rather than proper names—such as al-Ajlah, whose actual name was Yahya . Other scholars, including Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani and Alaa al-Din Mughaltay, examined specific entries such as Sughdi ibn Sinan, Waqqas ibn Rabiah, and Suhayb, assessing whether their singularity held within their respective generations or across the broader corpus of transmitters .
Modern Editions
The text has been published in modern critical editions:
- Edited by Sukayna al-Shihabi, published in a single volume by Dar Tlas in Damascus (1987) .
- Edited by Abduh Ali Koshak, published by Dar al-Ma'mun li-l-Turath in Damascus (1410 AH / 1990 CE), which included Ibn Bukayr's Naqd Tabaqat al-Asma al-Mufrada alongside the main text .
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