امام ذہبی علیہ الرحمہ کی فن اسماء الرجال میں خدمات

The Services of Imam Zahbi in the field of Asma-ur-rijaal

Abstract

The prime worldly objective behind Apostleship of the last Prophet (SAWW) was preaching Allah's orders to the people. Among these orders, some were brief in nature while the other were relating to some details. Some orders were about individual and the other about collective life of the people. That is why Sahabah (RTA) and the Tabaeens tried their best to pass on Prophet's teaching pertaining to every matter and problem of life most accurately to the Ummah. Hadith's teaching and learning was in oral form in the early days of Islam. Because it was customary in those days that people having heard something from the teacher used to learn it by heart. Hadith’s compiling was started very late. In the pre ahadith compiling period, a few persons were noticed who unintentionally reported false traditions with reference to the last Prophet (SAWW). There were people who otherwise were very honest but due to their impaired memory had made mistakes in narrating the traditions. There were yet those who heard a tradition from an unauthentic narrator. They did not mention the name of its narrator, fearing that people would not accept it. They simply omitted narrator’s identity so that people could not recognize the real person. These and many other shortcomings were common among many hadith's narrators. While rendering valuable services to the cause of hadith, its scholars, therefore introduced a branch of knowledge known as ‘Asma ur rijaal’. The experts of this knowledge have clearly mentioned the authentic and unauthentic traditionists in the hadith’s books. Undoubtedly, Imam Zahbi’s books on Asma ur rijaal are a great service to Islam. The great Imam of Asma ur rijaal, Hazrat Shams ud Din Abu Abdullah Mohammad Bin Ahmad Bin Usman Az Zahbi (RTA) died in 748 AH.