Tarikh Asma al-Thiqat
- Author died
- 385 AH
- Editions
- al-Dār al-Salafiyyah
Tarikh Asma al-Thiqat (History of the Names of Trustworthy Transmitters) is a biographical dictionary of reliable hadith narrators compiled by the Baghdadi hadith scholar and preacher Ibn Shahin (297–385 AH / 910–995 CE) .
Purpose and Scope
The book is dedicated to compiling biographical notices of trustworthy (thiqah) hadith transmitters whose integrity and reliability had been affirmed by early critics . It stands among the earliest surviving specialized works devoted exclusively to reliable transmitters, alongside the earlier biographical collections of al-Ijli (d. 261 AH) and Ibn Hibban (d. 354 AH) . Ibn Shahin outlined the scope of the work in his introduction, stating that he gathered narrators whose evaluations had been transmitted from leading authorities of hadith criticism whose uprightness was widely recognized, including Yahya ibn Ma'in, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ali ibn al-Madini, 'Uthman ibn Abi Shaybah, Muhammad ibn 'Abdullah ibn 'Ammar al-Mawsili, and Ahmad ibn Salih .
Method and Related Works
In compiling the dictionary, Ibn Shahin acted primarily as a transmitter and compiler of earlier critical verdicts rather than articulating independent, original evaluations for each narrator . As a result, subsequent scholars such as Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani typically cited entries by noting that Ibn Shahin recorded a narrator in his Thiqat, distinguishing this from an independent declaration of reliability by Ibn Shahin himself .
Ibn Shahin composed a companion volume focusing on weak and abandoned transmitters titled Tarikh Asma al-Du'afa wa-l-Kadhdhabin (History of the Names of the Weak and Liars) . Because certain transmitters were mentioned in al-Thiqat based on an endorsement by one critic and also appeared in al-Du'afa based on criticism from another, he later authored Dhikr man Ikhtalafa fih (Mention of Those Concerning Whom Scholars Disagreed), reviewing sixty-eight contested narrators to weigh the conflicting opinions .
Critical Assessment
Later scholars noted that transmissions in the work from earlier authorities whom Ibn Shahin did not meet are not always backed by unbroken chains of transmission. The modern hadith scholar Abd al-Rahman al-Mu'allimi pointed out, regarding a statement attributed by Ibn Shahin to 'Uthman ibn Abi Shaybah, that the report is disconnected (munqati'), noting that Ibn Shahin was born approximately sixty years after 'Uthman's death and was not known to have committed himself to authentic transmission chains for accounts he related about those he did not encounter .
Editions
The work has been published in multiple critical editions, including:
- An edition edited and annotated by Abu al-Ma'ali Azhar al-Mubarakfuri, published in Bombay by Sharaf al-Din al-Kutubi wa-Awladuh in 1403 AH .
- An edition edited by Subhi al-Samarra'i, published by al-Dar al-Salafiyyah in Kuwait in 1404 AH .
- An edition edited and annotated by 'Abd al-Mu'ti Amin Qal'aji, published by Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyyah and Dar al-Baz in Beirut in 1406 AH / 1986 CE .
- An edition edited by Muhammad ibn 'Ali al-Azhari, published by al-Faruq al-Hadithah in Egypt in 1430 AH / 2009 CE .
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