Answering Ibn al Ghadairi`s objection on the Book of Sulaym bin Qays

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Hadith study, Kitab Sulaym bin Qays

Answering Ibn al Ghadairi`s objection on the Book of Sulaym bin Qays

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2021-04-26
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Objection of Ibn al Ghazairi

Ibn Al Ghazairi says :

"Sulaym ibn Qays Hilali Al Amiri, he has narrated from Abi Abdullah, Al Hassan (as), Al Hussain (as) and Ali ibn Hussain (as) and this famous book has been attributed to him. Our companions used to say that Sulaym is not known and there is no mention of him in the reports. However, I found him being mentioned in some sources other than his book and not through Aban ibn Abi Ayyash, and ibn Uqda has mentioned some narrations from him in his book among the companions of the Commander of the Faithful (as). The book is fabricated, there is no doubt about it and there are signs about it, among the evidences for this are what he mentions from Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr talking with his father on his deathbed and that there will be thirteen Imams and so on. The Chains of this book differ, sometimes it is through Umar ibn Uzaina from Ibraheem ibn Umar Al Sanani from Aban ibn Abi Ayyash from Sulaym and sometimes Umar narrates from Aban without any intermediaries"

[Khulasatul Aqwal, pg 161, 163]

Reply :

We Shias do not consider any book to be 100% authentic, because for every narration the criteria of authenticity must be applied and it is usually not limited to reliability of its narrators, rather to criteria like correlation with Quran and other authentic narrations and so many other conditions. As for the other objection from ibn Al Ghazairi, firstly, we should mention that the Rijal book of ibn Al Ghazairi is a doubtful book in itself. The first person who has mentioned this book is Ahmad ibn Tawoos who died in the year 673 AH, while ibn Al-Ghazairi died between 411 - 450 AH, which will be mentioned in the upcoming sections InshaAllah

Is ibn al Ghazairi`s book of Rijal Reliable ?

Prominent scholars of rijal DISAGREE over whether the book was really written by Ibn al-Ghada'iri or not. Aqa Buzurg Tihrani and Ayatollah Khu'i strongly reject the attribution of the book to Ahmad b. Abi 'Abd Allah al-Ghada'iri, holding that the book was written by adversaries of Shiism who mixed Ibn al-Ghada'iri's book with distorted and false claims in an attempt to damage the reputation of prominent Shiite figures. They believe that Ibn al-Ghada'iri was a friend and a companion of al-Najjashi, and so, if he had a book of rijal, al-Najjashi would cite it in his book

Refer : al-Dharia, vol 10, pg 89

Muʿjam rijal al-hadith, vol 1, pg 95-96

One can also refer to Shaheed Ayatullah Murtaza al Muttahari's 'Journal of Islamic Thought and Culture' for the same

This view can also be supported by the fact that the ONLY transmitter of the book was Ahmad b. Tawus who admits that he DID NOT receive the book via a connecting chain of transmission

Refer : al-Tahriri tawusi, pg 5

In the book attributed to Ibn al-Ghada'iri, a large number of Shiite figures and some of the Shiite transmitters of hadiths are considered as UNRELIABLE, while they count as RELIABLE by other scholars of rijal or other Shiite scholars in general.

Refer : Ashna'i ba kutub rijali Shia, pg 38

One criterion on which Ibn al-Ghada'iri relied to discredit transmitters of hadiths was their tendency to ghuluw (exaggeration about the Imams (a)) or their transmission of hadiths that contain ghuluw. For example, he considered all people who transmitted miracles by the Imams (a) to be unreliable

Refer : Ashna'i ba kutub rijali Shia, pg 52

Such a method adopted by Ibn al-Ghada'iri that led to the conclusion that many prominent Shiite scholars and transmitters of hadiths were UNRELIABLE was the main reason why some Shiite scholars have doubted the credibility of Ibn al-Ghada'iri's views or the correctness of the attribution of this book to him

Gigantic scholars like Allameh Majlisi and Mohaddeth Noori consider Ibn al-Ghada'iri's views to be UNACCEPTABLE

Refer : Bihar al-anwar, vol 1, pg 41

Ashna'i ba kutub rijali Shia, pg 47

In his ALLEGED book, Ibn al Ghada'iri in addition to casting doubts on the attribution of the book to Ibn al-Ghada'iri, rejected his views because he has considered some transmitters of hadiths as UNRELIABLE on the basis of his PERSONAL SPECULATIONS and in a CARELESS and EXCESSIVE way

Some Shiite scholars of rijal have adopted a middle way with respect to the credibility of Ibn al Ghada'iri's views: they believe that his views are credible when he takes a transmitter of hadiths to be RELIABLE, while they are not credible when he takes a transmitter of hadiths to be UNRELIABLE

Ashna'i ba kutub rijali Shia, pg 48

'Grand Ayatullah Shaykh Muhammad al-Sanad, disputes ibn Ghadairi's methodology and the veracity of his opinions because most of Ibn al-Ghada'iri's weakenings are based on istiqraa' [reading a person's narrations and saying he's a ghali] and from that he extrapolates the other comments like accusations of lying'

Furthermore, the early scholars of Qum have disparaged a huge number of the narrators but their disparagement was not based on the report of a veracious person from a veracious person, but rather on the basis of their theological differences with those narrators. Therefore if they noticed anything in a tradition that seemed like an exaggeration (al-ghuluww) in doctrinal issues, they would criticise the tradition as being exaggerated or fabricated

Al-Muhaqqiq al-Bihbahani says:

'They (early scholars of Qom) considered any concept of the delegation of divine powers, any sort of elevation, miracles and extraordinary acts, and knowledge of the secrets of the heavens and the earth attributed to the Imams as doctrinal exaggeration'

He further continued saying:

'It should be known that al-Ghadha'iri used to ACCUSE a narrator of lies or fabrications after having ACCUSED him of doctrinal exaggeration as if his transmission indicated that'

1. Agha Buzurg Tehrani says :

"We cannot find any trace of the book (of Rijal of ibn al Ghazairi also called as al-Dhuafa) before the time of Sayyed ibn Tawus who died in the year 673 AH, because Sayyed, around the middle of the seventh century found this book attributed to ibn Al Ghazairi, without hearing it from anyone or have been narrated by anyone of his Sheikhs, so he copied its content in his book of Rijal called "Hall Al-Ishkaal Fi Tarajum Al Rijal" after he mentions of what existed in the four major books of Rijal that were transferred to him through his Sheikhs. He mentions what was in it, so that he had done his job. He copied what was in it in his book, so that his book contains all what has been said about the narrators he has mentioned in his book. Apparently, he has not found his book about Mamdohin (ie. praiseworthy narrators), otherwise he would have narrated from that book too. Then the two students of Al Sayyed, and they are Allamah Hilli and ibn Dawood, they have followed their teacher in this by copying the content of what their teacher has mentioned in his book "Hall Al-Ishkaal," in their books of "Al Khulasa" and "Al Rijal" Ibn Dawood has mentioned in the end of the biography of his teacher that most of the content of his book "Al Rijal" are the points of his teacher and his researches, but Al-Allamah does not mention it, however this is apparent from his book.

And his statement on two occasions in Al Khulasa in mentioning the contradictions of ibn Al Ghazairi in his two books, shows what he has heard from his teacher about those contradictions and it does not show explicitly that he has seen the two books himself. In summary, he did not know what happened to the book of Al Dhuafa that ibn Tawus found, until Mawla Abdullah Tustari who died in the year 1021 AH copied the statements attributed to ibn Al Ghazairi from the shredded manuscript of "Hall Al Ishkaal" and collected them independently in a book and mentioned in his Dibaaj and Qahpani, the student of Al Mawla Abdullah, has copied its content in his book "Majma Al Rijal" and has mentioned it in his Dibaaj in its full form in his book and that is in our hands with his handwriting. The attribution of the book of Al Dhuafa to the famous ibn Ghazairi who was of the Sheikhs of this creed and of the Sheikhs of Sheikh Najashi, is a big prejudice about him and he is higher than this state of disrespect to the masters of the religion, to the extent that no one of those great people of abstinence, righteousness and chastity have survived of his critics, so it is apparent that the author of this book was of the enemies of the great personalities of the Shia and wanted to insult them with every trick and every tool, so he has written this book and has mentioned some of the opinions of ibn Ghazairi to disguise people, so that the readers accept whatever of his insults and obscenities he wanted to attribute to those great people, and Allah knows best

It should be added to this from Sayyed ibn Tawus, his establishing of the general rule in Jarh Wa Ta'dil (ie. authenticating and weakening the narrators), that if Jarh (ie. weakening of the narrators) contradicts with other opinions, it would be void and if it does not contradict another opinion then trusting it has priority, the opposite of Madh (ie. praise of a narrator) which trusting it is better and because of this firm ruling among scholars, it is the way of our scholars to not pay attention to the weakening of narrators in the book Al Dhuafa, this is if we suppose that its author of the book is known, let alone that the author is unknown, so how can its weakenings be acted upon ?"

[Al Dharia, v 10, pg 88, 89]

2. Abul Qasim al Khui writes :

"As a result, the book (Ar Rijal) attributed to Ibn Ghadairi has been found to be UNAUTHENTIC. Rather, some of them are certain that it is FABRICATED (Mawdu) by our opponents and attributed to Ibn Ghadairi"

[Mujam Rijal Hadith, v 1, pg 96]