—in Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb, with all the criticism and commendation it contains, he will inevitably ask: what verdict did al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar finally reach concerning this narrator? The answer is supplied by Ibn Ḥajar himself in his Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb, where he will describe the narrator as thiqah (trustworthy), ṣadūq (reliable), ḍaʿīf (weak), or something similar.

Al-Mizzī’s Tahdhīb al-Kamāl was likewise refined by al-Dhahabī in his Tadhhīb Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, and further epitomized by al-Khazarjī in his Khulāṣat Tadhhīb Tahdhīb al-Kamāl.

The difference between the Taqrīb and the Khulāṣah is that Ibn Ḥajar, in the Taqrīb, states his own judgment on the narrator and identifies his generational stratum, whereas al-Khazarjī, in the Khulāṣah, lists some of the narrator’s teachers and pupils and records part of what the critics have said about him, whether in censure or in praise. When he treats a Companion, he also notes the number of ḥadiths attributed to him in the Six Books, and the number of