ʿIlm ar-ridjāl

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ʿIlm ar-ridschāl ( Arabic علم الرجال, DMG ʿilm ar-riǧāl  'science (about) men') is a genre of Islamic literature that deals with the traditionalists, i.e. H. the sources in the chains of narrators of hadith . The aim is to gather enough knowledge about these people and their background that an assessment of the trustworthiness of the respective person is possible.

tasks

The main tasks of the literary genre are 1. to fathom the character of the people, 2. to question the circumstances of the transmission and 3. to identify the names in such a way that confusion between the narrators can be ruled out.

General skills such as good memory, competent language skills and a general diligence with regard to the fulfillment of tasks were generally identified as a basic requirement for tradition. However, the moral integrity of the deliverer was weighted more strongly than these qualities. So it is an (adult) Muslim who should be aware of the responsibility of his task. He should also be sinless and have a righteous character. The respective character traits are individually assessed on the basis of the biographical material and classes of trustworthiness are assigned.

The specific evaluations and requirements that were placed on a person who should meet the highest standards are largely subject to the assessment of the respective author. To a certain extent, the qualities outlined above represent guidelines that can easily be modified and supplemented depending on the preferences of the scholar. Sun insists Malik ibn Anas that the transmitter not only passes (right) receives the message, but also the content and the intention has understood the law.

In addition to checking personal integrity, there is another task in sifting through the biographical details of the life of the narrator. This is to ensure that the genealogy of knowledge claimed in the isnād chains is at least theoretically possible. Three questions are of particular interest:

  • 1. Did the person delivering and receiving the knowledge actually live at the same time, or did the biographies at least partially overlap?
  • 2. Does the knowledge of the career of the two people allow conclusions to be drawn as to whether they were together in one place at a certain point in their life?
  • 3. How old were they at the time of the meeting, that is, had they reached an age at which they could fully grasp what they had heard?

Rijal works

Well-known early Rijāl works are the Kitāb aṭ-Ṭabaqāt al-kabīr ("The Great Class Book") by Muhammad ibn Saʿd , the Kitāb at-Taʾrīḫ ("The Book of History") by al-Buchārī and al-Ǧarḥ wa-t -taʿdīl (“ Incredible and credible declaration”) by Ibn Abī Hātim ar-Rāzī (st. 938). The Kitāb aṯ-Ṯiqāt of Muhammad Ibn Hibbān al-Bustī (884–965) was especially dedicated to trustworthy traders .

The Rijāl works of the later period include al-Kamāl fī maʿrifat asmāʾ ar-riǧāl ("The Complete in Knowing the Names of the Informers") by ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī and its extension, the monumental work Tahḏīb al-kamāl fī asmāʾ ar-riǧāl ("The expansion of the complete beyond the names of the sources") by al-Mizzī .

A sub-discipline of Rijal science deals with homograph proper names, i.e. names that are spelled with the same (or similar) Arabic letters, but are pronounced differently and also designate different people. Examples of such homograph names are Salām and Sallām, both of whichسلام be written, ʿUmāra and ʿImāra (عمارة), Karīz and Kuraiz (كريز), as well as omitting the diacritical marks and limiting it to the rasm Ḥizām and Ḥarām (حزام, حرام). The Kitāb al-Ikmāl ("Book of Completion") by ʿAlī ibn Hibatallāh Ibn Mākūlā is considered to be one of the most important works in this field of knowledge, which is called al-Muʾtalif wa-l-muḫtalif ("the coincident and different"). born 1031), which brings together and completes earlier works on this subject by ad-Dāraqutnī (st. 995), ʿAbd al-Ghanī ibn Saʿīd al-Azdī (st. 1019) and al-Chatīb al-Baghdādī (st. 1071) .

criticism

The ʿilm ar-riǧāl as an auxiliary science of hadith scholarship was criticized early on for being very prone to errors for several reasons. So it is fundamentally very difficult to fathom the character of a person, a problem that is considerably exacerbated by the great distance between the assessors and those assessed. Apart from the fact that the material handed down is very scarce, it cannot be guaranteed that all the necessary information has actually been handed down. Some contradicting information is also in circulation.

literature

supporting documents

  1. ↑ See Ather Shahbaz Hussain: The Nuzhah of Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalānī (d. 852/1449); a translation and critical commentary. Doctoral thesis University of Birmingham 2012. pp. 363-366. Available online here .
  2. ↑ See Fuat Sezgin : History of Arabic literature. 1. Volume: Qur'ānwissenschaften, Hadīṯ, Geschichte, Fiqh, Dogmatik, Mystik up to approx. 430 H. Leiden 1967. S. 208 u. 224.
  3. ↑ Cf. Carl Brockelmann : History of Arabic Literature. Leiden 1937-1949, Supplement I, page 602.