the very elite of creation; yet he let his tongue run against the leading imams of the Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanafīs, went to extremes in attacking the Ashʿarīs, and praised the mujassimah (those who attribute corporeality to God) beyond all bounds. And this, mind you, from a consummate ḥāfiẓ and a venerable imām—so what, then, should one expect from the rank-and-file of historians! (1)

In another place al-Subkī relates that he copied, in the author’s own handwriting, the words of Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn Khalīl ibn Kīlkildī al-ʿAlāʾī (694–761 AH), one of al-Dhahabī’s pupils and close associates, (2) in which he says:

“The ḥāfiẓ, Shaykh Shams al-Dīn al-Dhahabī—I harbour no doubt concerning his faith, his piety, and his scrupulousness in what he reports about people. Yet the doctrine of ithbāt (unqualified affirmation of the divine attributes) has gained the upper hand over him, along with an aversion to figurative interpretation and an inattentiveness to tanzīh (asserting God’s absolute transcendence). That has so affected his disposition that he is markedly alienated from the people of tanzīh and strongly inclined toward the people of ithbāt. Thus, when he writes the biography of one of the latter, he waxes eloquent—marshalling every word of praise ever uttered about him, enlarging upon it, overlooking the man’s mistakes, and explaining them away wherever possible. But when he mentions someone from the other side, such as Imām al-Ḥaramayn, al-Ghazālī, and the like, he is sparing in his praise, amply cites those who fault them, repeats and highlights their criticisms—imagining all of this to be an act of devotion without realizing it. He passes over their manifest virtues and therefore fails to record them in full; and if he chances upon a single slip of theirs, he seizes upon it.

“He does the same with scholars of our own time: if he cannot disparage one of them outright, he will record in his notice such phrases as, ‘May Allah set him aright,’ and the like—the root of the matter being their divergence from him in creed. (3)”

Al-Subkī then observes that the situation is even worse than what al-ʿAlāʾī has described, adding: “The shaykhs whom we met would forbid us to look into his writings or give weight to his opinions; and he himself would not dare let his historical works circulate except among those whom he felt certain would not transmit from them anything for which he might be reproached.” (4)