Type Sixty-One
Identifying the Reliable and the Weak

This is one of the most distinguished branches, for through it the sound report is separated from the defective. Numerous works have been authored in this field. Some are devoted exclusively to weak narrators, such as the books of al-Bukhari, al-Nasa’i, al-‘Uqayli, al-Daraqutni, and others. Some focus on the reliable, like Ibn Ḥibbān’s al-Thiqāt, and others cover both categories, such as al-Bukhari’s Tārīkh, the chronicle of Ibn Abī Khaythamah—how abundant its benefits!—and that of Ibn Abī Ḥātim—how lofty it is. The practice of al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl (disparagement and accreditation) was permitted as a safeguard for the Sharīʿah, yet anyone who engages in it must exercise great care, for more than one critic has erred by censuring a narrator for something that does not warrant censure. The legal rulings on this were discussed earlier under “Type Twenty-Three.” Allah knows best.

Type Sixty-Two
Trustworthy Narrators Who Later Became Confused

This is an important subject, although no independent monograph is known on it—yet it certainly deserves one. Some reliable transmitters became confused because of senility, loss of eyesight, or other causes. Therefore, what they narrated before the confusion is accepted, while what they reported afterward, or whose timing is uncertain, is rejected. Among them are: ʿAṭāʾ ibn al-Sāʾib—the senior scholars cite from him, such as al-Thawri and Shuʿbah, except for two ḥadīths that Shuʿbah heard from him at the very end of his life; Abū Isḥāq al-Sabiʿī—about whom it is said that ʿUyaynah’s hearing from him was after his confusion; Saʿīd al-Jurayrī; Ibn Abī ʿArūbah; ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUtbah ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Masʿūd al-Masʿūdī; Rabīʿah al-Raʾy, Mālik’s teacher; Ṣāliḥ, the freedman of al-Tawwāmah; Ḥuṣayn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kūfī; ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Thaqafī; Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah during the last two years of his life; ʿAbd al-Razzāq, who went blind near the end of his life and accepted prompting; ʿĀrim; Abū Qilābah al-Ruqāshī; and Abū Aḥmad