Extracted from the book of criticism and modification volume 3

Authorship Abu Muhammad Faleh Al-Shibli Introduction In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful All praise is due to Allah, we praise Him and seek His help and forgiveness. We seek refuge in Allah from the evil of ourselves and the bad of our deeds. Whom Allah guides, there is none to misguide him, and whom He misguides, there is none to guide him. I bear witness that there is no deity but Allah alone, with no partner, and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger. As for what follows, The most truthful speech is the Book of Allah, and the best guidance is the guidance of Muhammad. The worst of affairs are the newly invented matters, and every innovation is a misguidance, and every misguidance is in the Fire. From the words, I thank Allah that He granted me success in completing this work, which is the third in this series. I adopted a new method, and to the best of my knowledge, no one has preceded me in this classification approach, although some scholars mentioned it in their books, such as Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar and others. It involves extracting benefits of criticism and praise, or similar matters, from the book as a supplement to the book itself. For example, it might be that Abu Hatim Al-Razi authenticates a man and mentions another man alongside him, saying: they are two trustworthy. But this authentication was not transferred in the biography of the other man, so I include this authentication in the biography of the man whose biography did not mention this benefit. Then, there are some benefits which we will mention as follows: (1) There are some who have no biography at all in criticism and praise, and no scholar has spoken about them, so I include biographies for them. (2) There are those whom Ibn Abi Hatim mentioned but nothing was transferred about them in their biographies, and scholars have spoken about them elsewhere, so I transfer this statement to their biographies. (3) There are those whom a biography was mentioned for, and it was said about them that they are unknown, but I find authentication or criticism for them elsewhere. (4) There are those whom a biography was mentioned for, and some sayings were included, but they need the authentication or criticism I have extracted. (5) Then, there are some additions to Ibn Hajar’s Tahrib, which are beneficial additions. For example, the statement of Yahya ibn Saeed Al-Qattan: Ali said: I heard Yahya ibn Saeed Al-Qattan say: All of Ibn Jareej’s hadiths from Ibn Abi Mulaika are authentic, and he used to narrate them to me, saying: Ibn Jareej told me, and he said: Ibn Jareej told me, and in one of them, he said: from Ibn Abi Mulaika. I said: say, he told me. He said: all are authentic. (6) Some are mentioned with the comparative form, such as “so-and-so is more trustworthy than so-and-so,” or “so-and-so is the most trustworthy among so-and-so,” and this benefit is very useful in the field of ‘Ilal (weaknesses). And there are many other benefits besides these, which I have mentioned as examples. I have served this extracted material with a brief service to facilitate the researcher, and I will mention it as follows: (1) I extracted the full name of the biographee. (2) I identified some of the scholars mentioned in the transmitted texts. (3) I attributed the transmitted texts to their original sources, sometimes relying on a single source. (4) I mention the locations of biographies for men whom I did not find a biography for in criticism and praise. (5) I prepared indexes for scholars who do not have biographies in criticism and praise. Introduction (6) I distinguished it from the rest of the book by marking it with the letter “T”. In this place, I can only thank the dear brother “Abu Hamad Hadi bin Hamad Al-Mari,” who dedicated his time and library to me. By Allah, I ask that this work be purely for His face, and that He grants everyone success in obeying Him. That is the goal, and He is the capable. Written by Abu Muhammad Faleh Al-Shibli on Monday, 3rd Jumada Al-Akhirah 1412 AH, corresponding to 19/12/1991.