2015 Articles

ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Maḥjūbī, Al-Muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīthī min khilāl Kitāb al-Jarḥ wa-al-taʿdīl li-Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī

Melchert, Christopher

This is evidently an edition of Maḥjūbī’s doctoral dissertation from around 2003, under the direction of Muḥammad al-Ṣiqillī al-Ḥusaynī, presumably in Fez. It is a highly systematic survey of hadith terminology in Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s huge biographical dictionary, al-Jarḥ wa-altaʿdīl. About half of his entries include an evaluation of the person’s hadith transmission, especially (in descending order of frequency) from his father, Abū Ḥātim (d. 277/890), Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn (d. 233/848), Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal (d. 241/855), and Abū Zurʿah al-Rāzī (d. 264/878). Maḥjūbī takes one term after another and gives first its dictionary (non-technical) definition, then its technical meaning, its appearance in prophetic hadith, if any, then the way it is used in al-Jarḥ wa-al-taʿdīl.