—adding his own chain of transmission whenever the opportunity presents itself (1).

Al-Dhahabī also reorganized some of the works he abridged: when he produced an epitome of Al-Kunā by Abū Aḥmad al-Ḥākim (d. 378 AH), he rearranged it alphabetically after incorporating additional material that was absent from the original (2).

Likewise, he divided Al-Mujarrad min Tahdhīb al-Kamāl into ten tiers, each tier then ordered alphabetically, whereas al-Mizzī’s Tahdhīb al-Kamāl had been arranged in a simple alphabetical sequence (3).

From al-Dhahabī’s biography we learn that he devoted himself to the qirāʾāt (Qur’anic readings) and studied them under the foremost reciters of his age until he came to be regarded as “the great, trustworthy master” in that discipline (4).

Ibn Nāṣir al-Dīn (d. 842 AH) even declared him to be “an imam in the qirāʾāt” (5).

At the same time, however, we observe that only a very small number of students actually completed their studies in qirāʾāt under him (6), perhaps because he concentrated on this field at the outset of his scholarly life and later turned his attention to ḥadīth, history, and other sciences.

Of his writings in this discipline we know only Al-Talwīḥāt fī ʿIlm al-Qirāʾāt (7) and the book Maʿrifah