المفاضلة بين الرواة عند أبي نعيم الفضل بن دكين: دراسة نظرية تطبيقية

Abstract

Abū Nuʿaym al-Faḍl ibn Dukayn was a renowned and highly precise ḥadīth memorizer. He was considered more reliable than Wakīʿ. All the narrators between whom Abū Nuʿaym made preferential judgments were from Kūfah, except for Shuʿbah ibn al-Ḥajjāj, who was from Baṣrah. The number of narrators whom he compared amounted to twelve. All of them were trustworthy (thiqat), except for Abū Bakr ibn ʿAyyāsh and Yaḥyā ibn Ayyūb, who were described as truthful (ṣādiq), and Jarīr ibn Ayyūb, who was characterized as having munkar ḥadīths. This study employs a qualitative methodology, relying on secondary data sources such as scholarly articles, contemporary books, and classical sources related to the research topic. The type of analysis used is descriptive, following a deductive approach. The research findings show that Abū Nuʿaym employed various expressions in his comparative assessments of narrators, such as: "more accurate" (athbat), "more reliable" (awthaq), "more memorizing" (aḥfaẓ), "more numerous [in narration]" (akthar), and "preferred" (yuqaddam). It is not necessarily the case that his preferences indicate authentication or endorsement; he may have preferred a truthful narrator over a weak one, or compared three narrators all deemed trustworthy, or selected a specific narrator as superior in a particular aspect—such as the best blind narrator, the best Shīʿī narrator, or the most knowledgeable in the ḥadīths of the people of al-Ḥijāz. There were various reasons behind Abū Nuʿaym’s preference among narrators, including common locality, kinship, shared circumstances affecting memorization, doctrinal orientation, and physical condition. His preferential judgments reflect his extensive knowledge in the science of ḥadīth transmission, as determining the most superior narrator in a given attribute is no simple task.