al-Madīnī, Yahyā ibn Muīn, Ishāq, Muhammad ibn Yahyā al-Dhuhlī, al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Dāwūd, al-Nasāī, Abū Hātim and Abū Zura al-Rāzī, Abū Abd Allah ibn Manda, al-Dāraqutnī, and others like them among the leading hadith authorities, critics, arbiters, and master memorizers, who possess thorough expertise and knowledge of the Prophet’s life—peace and blessings be upon him—and the biographies of those among the Companions and Successors (and their successors) (1) who transmitted knowledge and hadith from the Prophet, as well as the later transmitters of knowledge.
They compiled many books devoted to identifying the narrators who transmitted the reports and recording their names. They also recorded biographical information about them, their teachers, and their students. Examples include works on “Hidden Defects and the Names of Narrators” by Yahyā al-Qattān, Ibn al-Madīnī, Ahmad, Ibn Muīn (2), al-Bukhārī, Muslim, Abū Zura, Abū Hātim, al-Nasāī, al-Tirmidhī, Ahmad ibn Adī, Ibn Hibbān, Abū al-Fath al-Azdī, al-Dāraqutnī, and others.
Al-Thalabī’s commentary contains both fabricated and authentic hadiths. Among its fabricated material are the hadiths concerning the merits of the surahs, surah by surah.
Al-Zamakhsharī and al-Wāhidī (3) cited this hadith, but it is a fabricated falsehood by consensus among hadith scholars. The same applies to other such reports.