Mahfuz Ahmad
Khaṭīb Tibrīzī in his Mishkāt Al-Maṣābīḥ recorded several aḥādīth from the book of Razīn using the statement ‘rawāhu Razīn’. This led people to question, who is Razīn and what is the status of his book?
Razīn:
- His full name is Razīn Ibn Muʿāwiyah Ibn ʿAmmār.
- He is originally from Andalus, but lived in Makkah, and was the Imām of the Mālikīs in Masjid Al-Ḥaram. Razīn studied Ḥadīth with Sheikh ʿĪsā Ibn Abū Dharr, Muslim Ibn Abū ʿAbdullāh Al-Ṭabarī and others.
- His students include Muḥammad Ibn ʿAli Al-Ṭabarī, Aḥmad Ibn Muḥammad Ibn Qudāmah, Abū Mūsā Al-Madīnī, Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAsākir and others.
- ʿAllāmah Razīn compiled a number of books, such as ‘Akhbaru Makkah’ and ‘Tajrīd Al-Ṣiḥāḥ’; the latter being the most well known book of his and is often mentioned by Khaṭīb Tibrīzī in his Mishkāt.
- Razīn died in the month of Muharram in 535 AH, in Makkah.
His book:
His book Tajrīd Al-Ṣiḥāḥ is a collection of the Ḥadīth from Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imām Mālik, Ṣaḥīḥ Al-Bukhārī, Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Sunan Abī Dāwūd, Sunan Al-Tirmidhī and Sunan Al-Nasāʾī. Razin completed this book before 505 AH.
Ibn Al-Athīr relied upon this collection in his work Jāmiʿ Al-Uṣūl.
Many ʿUlamāʾ commented on Razīn’s book, some of their opinions are as follows:
- Ḥāfiẓ Dhahabī said:
أدخل كتابه زيادات واهية لو تنزه عنها لأجاد.
‘He (Razīn) has included many weak additional narrations to his book, if he could abstain from these that would have been great’.
- Ibn Taymiyyah, on various occasions in different books of his, commented on Razīn’s work. In one place, Ibn Taymiyyah says that Razīn has recorded such narrations in his book which can not be found in the Ṣaḥīḥ collections of Ḥadīth.
- In another place, Ibn Taymiyyah says that Tajrīd Al-Ṣiḥāḥ of Razīn is among those works in which there are plenty of Mawḍūʿ (fabricated) Ḥadīth. Therefore, Scholars have unanimously agreed that it is not allowed to rely upon these collections of Ḥadīth.
- Shawkānī has a long discussion about this work in his book Al-Fawāʾid Al-Majmūʿah (p. 49), and here is a summary of his discussion:
‘Razīn has mentioned in his book many such additional Ḥadīth which are fabricated and whose sources are unknown, no one knows where they come from. Ibn Al-Athīr made a mistake by including Razīn’s additional narrations in his book Jāmiʿ Al-Uṣūl. And Ibn Al-Athīr did not clarify the inauthenticity of these additions, apart from a few rare cases. For instance, After recording the Ḥadīth of ‘Ṣalāt Al-Raghāʾib’, Ibn Al-Athīr commented that “I found this narration in Razīn’s book, however I could not locate this to any of the well-known six collections of Ḥadīth”. The reason why this occurred in Razīn’s book is that Razīn got those additions through his own chain of narrators, and Razīn was not among the ‘Nuqqād’ (the expert scholars of Ḥadīth who criticize the chain of narrators, etc.). Therefore, Razīn did not verify the additional narrations and that made his book an unreliable source for Ḥadīth’.
Razīn’s book was considered non-existent. Due to this, students were not able to inspect the quality (isnād) of the Ḥadīth and as such, all citations were viewed with suspicion (ḍaʿīf/weak). If they would find the same meaning being affirmed in one of the six they would cite Razīn’s narration then say it’s meaning is upheld by these narrations.
However, now experts have discovered some manuscripts of his book Tajrīd Al-Ṣiḥāḥ. For instance:
- Carl Brockelmann, in his Tarikh Al-Adab Al-Arabi, mentioned that some parts of Tajrīd Al-Ṣiḥāḥ still survive in different libraries. For instance, some parts of it are preserved in Rampur, India, some of it are in Tübingen, Germany, and some other parts are in Munich, Germany.
- ʿAbdul ʿAzīz Al-Sāwirī, an expert of manuscripts from Morocco, has discovered a handwritten copy of Tajrīd Al-Ṣiḥāḥ which was scribed with Andalusi font, in the seventh century Hijrī.
- Another handwritten copy of Tajrīd was found in two volumes, in 176 papers. This was scribed in 611 AH.
- Some chapters of Tajrīd Al-Ṣiḥāḥ have been worked on as Masters theses in King Khālid University, Saudi Arabia. The twentieth part of the book is edited by the researcher Salīmah Rājiḥ Muḥammad Al-Shahrī, and the twenty first part of it is edited by the researcher Sharīfah Ḥasan Āl-e Qāsim from King Khālid university, in 1439 AH.
(This short article is part of Ustadh Mahfuz Ahmad’s upcoming book ‘Introduction to Mishkāt Al-Maṣābīḥ’)
