We also know that al-Dhahabī produced specialized critical works written in rebuttal to particular authors. He composed a treatise answering Ibn al-Qaṭṭān, who died in 628 AH (1), and he authored Man Tukullima Fīhi wa Huwa Muwaththaq, in which he responded to a host of the books on weak transmitters, as we have shown.

Because of the critical acumen and mastery that we have just mentioned, he became—as Taj al-Dīn al-Subkī states—“the Shaykh of al-Jarḥ wa al-Taʿdīl” (2).

Ibn Nāṣir al-Dīn, who died in 842 AH, said: “The critic of the hadith scholars and the imām of those who accredit and discredit… he was a marvel in the scrutiny of narrators, a mainstay in al-Jarḥ wa al-Taʿdīl” (3). Shams al-Dīn al-Sakhāwī, who died in 902 AH, added: “He is among those possessed of exhaustive inductive grasp in the criticism of narrators” (4). Hence al-Dhahabī’s verdicts on the men whose biographies he records came to be regarded by the critics and historians after him as the ultimate authority, a fact that stands out clearly in the writings produced after his age, especially in the works of the ninth-century historian and ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852 AH) (5).

When we read al-Dhahabī’s books, we come across many instances that display his power of research and reasoning and his willingness to debate others’ views with a scholarly spirit founded upon evidence and persuasion. Among these is his discussion of those who charged the ḥāfiẓ Abū Ḥātim Muḥammad ibn Ḥibbān al-Bustī al-Tamīmī (d. 354 AH) with heresy for saying, “Prophethood is knowledge and practice,” an accusation that led the caliph to issue an order for his execution on that account. Al-Dhahabī said: “This