تهذيب الكمال-الرسالة العالمية

Tahdhib al-Kamal

One of the greatest and most comprehensive classical reference works on Ḥadīth narrators and al-Jarḥ wa’l-Taʿdīl, by the eminent Damascene ḥadīth master Jamāl al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥajjāj Yūsuf ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Mizzī (654–742 AH). Tahdhīb al-Kamāl became a foundational reference for the biographical study of the transmitters of the Six Books of Ḥadīth, and subsequently formed the basis of a whole family of major rijāl works, most famously al-Dhahabī’s Tadhhīb Tahdhīb al-Kamāl and Ibn Ḥajar’s Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb and Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb.

Al-Mizzī based his work upon al-Kamāl fī Asmāʾ al-Rijāl of al-Ḥāfiẓ ʿAbd al-Ghanī al-Maqdisī (d. 600 AH), but transformed and greatly expanded it. Whereas al-Kamāl sought to gather the narrators of the Six Books, al-Mizzī carefully re-examined its contents, added large numbers of narrators who had been omitted, removed a small number who did not actually meet its criteria, corrected errors, and considerably enriched the individual biographies. He also broadened the scope to include narrators occurring in a number of other works by the authors of the Six Books. The result was sufficiently different and enlarged to become an independent encyclopaedic reference in its own right.

The individual entries contain far more than a simple judgment on a narrator. Al-Mizzī records the narrator's full name, kunyah, lineage and nisbah; teachers and students; the Ḥadīth collections in which he appears; statements of the earlier authorities of Jarḥ wa-Taʿdīl concerning his reliability; biographical and historical information; and, where available, his date of birth and death. One of the book's most useful features is its extensive documentation of a narrator's network of teachers and pupils, making it invaluable not only for determining reliability but also for studying isnāds, narrator relationships and the possibility of transmission between particular individuals. HadithWeb

Its influence on subsequent Ḥadīth scholarship was immense. Al-Dhahabī, Mughlaṭāy, Ibn Ḥajar and numerous other scholars abridged, supplemented or critically engaged with it. Ibn Ḥajar's celebrated Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb is itself an abridgement and refinement of al-Mizzī's work, and his still more concise Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb ultimately derives from the same scholarly lineage. Modern scholarship accordingly regards Tahdhīb al-Kamāl as one of the most important—if not the central—large-scale references for the rijāl of the Six Books.

The Dār al-Risālah al-ʿĀlamiyyah edition reproduces the celebrated critical edition of Dr. Bashshār ʿAwwād Maʿrūf, who established and vocalised the text and supplied extensive scholarly annotations. His edition was based upon important manuscript witnesses, including material in the author's own hand, and includes a substantial introductory study of al-Mizzī, the methodology and importance of Tahdhīb al-Kamāl, later scholarly works based upon it, and the manuscripts employed in establishing the text.

The current Dār al-Risālah al-ʿĀlamiyyah issue is the fourth edition, 2022, in 35 large hardback volumes, printed on cream paper.