The method employed in “Indexes of the Narrators Whom al-Albani Biographed in the Two Series,” by ʿAlawi al-Saqqāf (mentioned above under no. 8), is more useful than this Dictionary, for it points you straight to the place where the narrator is discussed, leaving it to you to consult the Shaykh’s own words—may Allah have mercy on him. Yet, as I noted earlier, that book is confined to the two Series alone, and only to volumes 1–4.

Had the index been completed so as to encompass the Shaykh’s other works, it would not have exceeded a single volume and would have been far preferable to the present “Dictionary.”

Bear in mind, however, that the Shaykh’s comments on narrators—important as they are—do not relieve the serious student from returning to the works of the early authorities, such as (1):

General reference works:
• al-Tārīkh al-Kabīr (The Major History).
• al-Jarḥ wa al-Taʿdīl (Criticism and Accreditation).
• al-Ṭabaqāt al-Kubrā (The Grand Biographical Layers).

Collections of narrations and “questions-and-answers,” for example:
• al-ʿIlal wa Maʿrifat al-Rijāl (Hidden Defects and Knowledge of the Narrators) —two recensions are in print.
• Marwiyyāt Ibn Maʿīn (The Narrations of Ibn Maʿīn) —five recensions are in print.
• Suʾālāt Ibn Abī Shayba li Ibn al-Madīnī (The Questions of Ibn Abī Shayba to Ibn al-Madīnī).
• Suʾālāt Ibn al-Junayd li Ibn Maʿīn (The Questions of Ibn al-Junayd to Ibn Maʿīn).
• Suʾālāt al-Dāraqutnī—three question collections are available.
• Suʾālāt Masʿūd al-Sijzī li al-Ḥākim (The Questions of Masʿūd al-Sijzī to al-Ḥākim).
• Suʾālāt Abī Dāwūd li Aḥmad (The Questions of Abū Dāwūd to Aḥmad).
• Suʾālāt al-Ājurī li Abī Dāwūd (The Questions of al-Ājurī to Abū Dāwūd).

Books devoted to trustworthy narrators:
• Thiqāt al-ʿAjlī (edited according to al-Haythamī’s arrangement).
• Thiqāt Ibn Ḥibbān.
• Thiqāt Ibn Shāhīn.

Books on weak and abandoned narrators:
• Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Bukhārī.
• Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Nasāʾī.
• Ḍuʿafāʾ Ibn Shāhīn.
• al-Kāmil fī Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Rijāl (The Complete Work on Weak Narrators).
• Ḍuʿafāʾ al-Dāraqutnī.

There are also other works classed among the primary sources for criticism and accreditation, such as:
• al-Baḥr al-Zakhkhār (better known as the Musnad of al-Bazzār).
• Kitāb al-ʿIlal al-Wārida fī al-Aḥādīth al-Nabawiyya (The Book of Defects Found in Prophetic Hadiths).

If we say that consulting these sources is preferable to relying on the compilations of the later hadith masters—al-Mizzī, al-Dhahabī, al-ʿIrāqī, al-Ḥusaynī, and Ibn Ḥajar—who are themselves titans of the science of narrator evaluation (ʿilm al-rijāl), then what should be said about turning to the works of our contemporaries?

I therefore hope that no one who reads my articles imagines that they contain any disparagement of the knowledge of the “muhaddith of the ummah,” Shaykh al-Albani—may Allah envelop him in mercy and admit him to Paradise.