he regarded the beginning of the fourth century AH as the boundary between the earlier and the later generations, and held that were he to turn his attention to the latter, only a small number of them would escape censure (1). Nevertheless, he did open this avenue in his other works—among them Muʿjam al-Shuyūkh, Tārīkh al-Islām, Siyar Aʿlām al-Nubalāʾ, and others.

B – Al-Dhahabī was a foremost critic who did not accept the verdicts of earlier authorities as indisputable axioms that could never be challenged, despite his profound respect for the trustworthy among them and his abundant praise of them. In his view, the door of independent reasoning (ijtihād) in criticism remained open, and he devoted himself to it with great care. This is shown by his rejection of the rulings of many leading critics—such as Aḥmad ibn Ṣāliḥ al-Miṣrī (d. 248 AH), Aḥmad ibn ʿAbd Allāh al-ʿIjli (d. 261 AH), Ibrāhīm ibn Yaʿqūb al-Jawzajānī al-Saʿdī (d. 259 AH), al-Baradhīʿī (d. 292 AH), al-Nasāʾī (d. 303 AH), al-ʿUqaylī (d. 322 AH), Ibn ʿAdī al-Jurjānī (d. 323 AH), Ibn Ḥibbān al-Bustī (d. 354 AH), Abū al-Fatḥ al-Azdī (d. 367 AH), Ibn Mandah (d. 395 AH), al-Khaṭīb al-Baghdādī (d. 463 AH), Ibn ʿAsākir (d. 571 AH), Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (d. 643 AH), and others too numerous to mention.

C – Criticism became, for him, an integral element of historical inquiry, and he therefore sought to apply it in all of his writings.

Many have erred in interpreting his criticism of eminent scholars who were not transmitters, or of kings, governors, and the like, as belonging to the field of naqd al-rijāl (criticism of transmitters). In reality, it was a historical judgement intended to evaluate the person being chronicled.