for these reports on the transmitter, as is the customary practice of those who compile works on the merits of particular times, places, people, and acts of worship. Such are the reports transmitted by Abū al-Shaykh al-Asbahānī in Fadā’il al-A‘māl (The Merits of Deeds) and other works. Drawing on his extensive body of transmitted material, he gathers numerous hadith, including many strong reports—authentic and good—as well as many weak, fabricated, and feeble reports.

The same applies to what Khaythama ibn Sulaymān transmits concerning the merits of the Companions; what Abū Nu‘aym al-Asbahānī transmits in Fadā’il al-Khulafā’ (The Merits of the Caliphs), a separate work, and at the beginning of Hilyat al-Awliyā’ (The Adornment of Allah’s Friends); and what Abū al-Layth al-Samarqandī, ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Kinānī, Abū ‘Alī ibn al-Bannā’, and similar scholars transmit. It also applies to what Abū Bakr al-Khatīb, Abū al-Fadl ibn Nāsir, Abū Mūsā al-Madīnī, Abū al-Qāsim ibn ‘Asākir, the hadith master ‘Abd al-Ghanī, and others with knowledge of hadith transmit. In their writings, they frequently transmit whatever has been reported, without restriction, following their usual practice. Their purpose is to make known what has been transmitted on a given subject, not to establish every transmitted report as evidence. One of them may comment on a hadith, describing it as singular, rejected, or weak; or he may leave it without comment.

This differs from the practice of the leading hadith scholars who use hadith as evidence and base their religion upon it, such as Mālik ibn Anas, Shu‘ba ibn al-Hajjāj, Yahyā ibn Sa‘īd al-Qattān, ‘Abd al-Rahmān ibn Mahdī, Sufyān ibn ‘Uyayna, ‘Abd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, Wakī‘ ibn al-Jarrāh, al-Shāfi‘ī, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Ishāq ibn Rāhawayh, ‘Alī ibn al-Madīnī, al-Bukhārī, Abū Zur‘a, Abū Hātim, Abū Dāwūd, Muhammad ibn Nasr al-Marwazī, Ibn Khuzayma, Ibn al-Mundhir, Dāwūd ibn ‘Alī, Muhammad ibn Jarīr al-Tabarī, and others. For these are the scholars who