ḠAŻĀʾERĪ, nesba of two Imami authors and traditionists.
1. Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Ḥosayn b. ʿObayd-Allāh b. Ebrāhīm, reportedly a leading scholar of his generation (d. mid-Ṣafar 411/June 1020). Little is known of his life. He traveled widely (Ebn Ḥajar, II, p. 364), studying among others with the Baḡdādī scholar Ebn Jeʿābī (d. 355/966; Ḏahabī, 1986, pp. 328-29), with Ebn Jonayd (d. 381/991, q.v.; Najāšī, p. 139), and with Zayd b. Jaʿfar ʿAlawī Moḥammadī (dates unknown), who may have been a Zaydī (Afandī, pp. 359-60). He also transmitted all the works of the Imami Abū Ḥamza Ḥasan b. (Muḥammad b.) Ḥamza b. ʿAlī Ṭabarī Marʿašī (d. 358/969), whom he met in Baghdad in 354/965 (Ṭūsī, 1961, p. 465; Ebn Maʿṣūm, pp. 457-58), or 356/967 (Ṭūsī, 1983, pp. 81-82; cf. Najāšī, p. 64). Among his best-known students were Najāšī and Ṭūsī (Najāšī, p. 69; Ṭūsī, 1961, p. 470).
Najāšī (p. 69) lists fourteen works by Ḡażāʾerī, none of which is extant. Judging by their titles, most dealt with Imami ḥadīṯ and feqh, and one was directed against the ḡolāt (qq.v.). In addition, Ḡażāʾerī is generally believed to have transmitted Zorārī’s Resāla and to have written (in 373/983 or later) a supplement (takmela) to it (printed in Zorārī, pp. 187-94; cf. al-Ḏarīʿa XI, p. 7, no. 31). However, Ḵᵛānsārī (II, p. 313) identifies the transmitter as Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Ḥosayn b. ʿObayd-Allāh b. ʿAlī Wāseṭī (d. before 420/1029).
Bibliography:
Abū ʿAlī Ḥāʾerī, Montahā’l-maqāl fī aḥwāl al-rejāl, Tehran, 1300/1882-83, p. 111.
ʿAbd-Allāh Afandī, Rīāż al-ʿolamāʾ , ed. A. Ḥosaynī, II, Qom, 1401/1981.
Aʿyān al-šīʿa XXVI, pp. 351-60. Abū ʿAbd-Allāh Ḏahabī, Sīar aʿlām al-nobalāʾ XVII, ed. Š. Arnaʾūṭ and M.-N. ʿArqasūsī, Beirut, 1406/1986.
Idem, Mīzān al-eʿtedālfī naqd al-rejāl I, Cairo, 1325/1907-8, p. 253.
Ebn Ḥajar ʿAsqalānī, Lesān al-mīzān, Beirut, 1407/1987.
Ebn Maʿṣūm, al-Darajāt al-rafīʿa, ed. M.-Ṣ. Baḥr-al-ʿOlūm, Najaf, 1382/1962.
Moḥammad-Bāqer Ḵᵛānsārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt, eds. M.-T. Kašfī and A. Esmāʿīlīān, 8 vols., Qom, 1390-92/1970-72, II, pp. 312-14.
A. Ḵoʾī Mūsawī, Moʿjam rejāl al-ḥadīṯ VI, Beirut, 1409/1989, pp. 19-21, no. 3481.
Abu’l-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Najāšī, Ketāb al-rejāl, ed. M. Šobayrī Zanjānī, Qom, 1407/1986-87.
ʿA. Qomī, al-Konā wa’l-alqāb II, Beirut, 1403/1983, p. 496.
Ṣalāḥ-al-Dīn Ḵalīl Ṣafadī, al-Wāfī bi’l-wafayāt XII, ed. R. ʿAbd-al-Tawwāb, Wiesbaden, 1399/1979, p. 421.
Āḡā Bozorg Ṭehrānī, Moṣaffā’l-maqāl fī moṣannefī ʿelm al-rejāl, ed. A. Monzawī, Tehran, 1378/1959, pp. 45-48.
Idem, al-Nābes fi’l-qarn al-ḵāmes, Beirut, 1391/1971, p. 64.
Moḥammad-Taqī Tostarī, Qāmūs al-rejāl, 14 vols., Tehran, 1379/1959, III, p. 294.
Abū Jaʿfar Ṭūsī, Rejāl, ed. M.-S. Āl Baḥr-al-ʿOlūm, Najaf, 1381/1961.
Idem, Fehrest kotob al-Šīʿa, Beirut, 1403/1983.
Abū Ḡāleb Zorārī, Resālat Abī Ḡāleb al-Zorārī elā ebn ebnehe fī ḏekr Āl Aʿyan, ed. M.-R. Ḥosaynī, Qom, 1411/1990-91.
2. His son Abu’l-Ḥosayn Aḥmad b. Ḥosayn Ḡażāʾerī, often referred to as Ebn Ḡażāʾerī (fl. first half of the 5th/11th century), a colleague of Abū Jaʿfar Ṭūsī and Aḥmad Najāšī. According to Ṭūsī (p. 28), Ebn Ḡażāʾerī was the first to attempt a comprehensive list of Imamite works. To this end he wrote two books: one comprising a list of authors of oṣūl (cf. Kohlberg, p. 131), the other comprising a list of authors of other works (termed by Ṭūsī taṣānīf or moṣannafāt). No copies were made of these books, and after his death they were destroyed (for some unexplained reason) by one or more members of his family.
Ebn Ḡażāʾerī is credited with a Ketāb al-żoʿafāʾ, also known as Ketāb al-rejāl,which Šahīd Ṯānī Zayn-al-Dīn ʿĀmelī erroneously ascribed to the older Ḡażāʾerī (cf. Majlesī, I, p. 22). It dealt with “weak” (i.e., unreliable) transmitters of traditions. It is first mentioned by Jamāl-al-Dīn Aḥmad b. Ṭāwūs (d. 673/1274-75, q.v.), who incorporated most (or all) of it in his Ḥall al-eškāl (completed in 644/1246). The Ketāb al-żoʿafāʾ was apparently no longer directly available to Ebn Ṭāwūs’s students Ebn Dāwūd and Ebn Moṭahhar Ḥellī, who cite it in their rejāl works via the Ḥall al-eškāl. By the time of Ḥasan b. Šahīd Ṯānī (d. 1011/1602) the work was considered to have been lost (Ebn Šahīd Ṯānī, p. 24). The Ḥall al-eškāl, however, was still available to ʿAbd-Allāh b. Ḥosayn Tostarī Eṣfahānī (d. 1021/1612), and from it he copied all the material from Ebn Ḡażāʾerī that it contained. Eṣfahānī’s copy reached his student ʿAlī Qohpāʾī (fl. early 11th/17th century), who incorporated it in his Majmaʿ al-rejāl (comp. 1016/1607; Qohpāʾī, I, pp. 10-11). The Ḥall al-eškāl appears to have subsequently been lost (al-Ḏarīʿa VII, pp. 64-65, no. 346).
The citations in these later sources indicate that Ebn Ḡażāʾerī labeled traditionists as żaʿīf when they held extremist views (e.g., Ebn Dāwūd, pp. 421, 446, 462, 473, 480, 522), forged traditions (e.g., idem, pp. 443, 459, 471, Ebn Moṭahhar, p. 110), cited chains of transmitters (esnāds) without the corresponding texts (matns) or vice versa (Qohpāʾī, V, p. 247), and so on. On occasion he would declare a person to be trustworthy but would fault him for transmitting from “weak” traditionists (e.g., Ebn Dāwūd, pp. 421, 516, 549). While Ebn Dāwūd and Ebn Moṭahhar seem to have regarded the Ketāb al-żoʿafāʾ as possessing the same authority as other rejāl works, some later scholars were more critical. Majlesī, for example, maintained that it contradicted most of the information found in well-known sources (I, p. 41). According to Āqā Bozorg Ṭehrānī, there is reason to doubt that Ebn Ḡażāʾerī really was the author of the Ketāb al-żoʿafāʾ, first because the author engages in blanket criticism of a kind unlikely to have issued from a person of Ebn Ḡażāʾerī’s stature, and second because this work is not heard of before Ebn Ṭāwūs (al-Ḏarīʿa IV, p. 288, X, pp. 88-89, no. 164). It should be noted, however, that Ebn Ḡażāʾerī defended some traditionists against accusations of extremism leveled against them by Qomī scholars (e.g., Ebn Dāwūd, pp. 493, 500) and was at times less critical than others (e.g., Ebn Dāwūd, pp. 446, 488); and that Ebn Ṭāwūs himself appears to have regarded this work as authentic (Ebn Šahīd Ṯānī, p. 25; Mīr Dāmād, p. 113).
Bibliography:
ʿAbd-al-Nabī Jazāʾerī, Ḥāwī’l-maqāl fī ʿelm al-rejāl, ms. Brit. Lib. Or. 8688, fols 6a-b, 37a.
Abū ʿAlī Ḥāʾerī, Montahā’l-maqāl fī aḥwāl al-rejāl, Tehran, 1300/1882-83, pp. 33-34.
Ḥ. Anṣārī, “Ebn-e Ḡażāʾerī” in DMBE IV, p. 361-62. Aʿyān al-šīʿa VIII, pp. 201-05.
Ebn Dāwūd Ḥellī, Ketāb al-rejāl, ed. J. Moḥaddeṯ Ormavī, Tehran, 1383/1963-64.
Ebn Moṭahhar Ḥellī, Ḵolāṣat al-aqwāl fī maʿrefat al-rejāl, Tehran, 1310/1892-93, p. 26 and passim.
Ebn Šahīd Ṯānī, al-Taḥrīr al-ṭāwūsī, ed. M.-Ḥ. Tarḥīnī, Beirut, 1408/1988.
Moḥammad-Bāqer Ḵᵛānsārī, Rawżāt al-jannāt, eds. M.-T. Kašfī and A. Esmāʿīlīān, 8 vols., Qom, 1390-92/1970-72, I, pp. 47-59.
E. Kohlberg, “al-Uṣūl al-arbaʿumiʾa,” Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam 10, 1987, pp. 131, 135, 153; repr. in idem, Belief and Law in Imāmī Shīʿism, Aldershot, 1991.
Moḥammad-Bāqer Majlesī, Beḥār al-anwār, Beirut, 1403/1983.
ʿAbd-Allāh Māmaqānī, Tanqīḥ al-maqāl, Najaf, 1349-52/1930-33, biog. nos. 327.
Mīr Dāmād, al-Rawāšeḥ al-samāwīya, Qom, 1405/1984-85, pp. 111-13.
ʿEnāyat-Allāh ʿAlī Qohpāʾī, Majmaʿ al-rejāl, ed. Ż. ʿAllāma, 7 vols., Eṣfahān, 1384-87/1964-68.
ʿA. Qomī, al-Konā wa’l-alqāb, 3 vols., Beirut, 1403/1983, I, pp. 371-72.
Moṣṭafā Tafrešī, Naqd al-rejāl, Tehran, 1318/1900-1901, pp. 20-21, 106.
Āḡā Bozorg Ṭehrānī, al-Nābes fi’l-qarn al-ḵāmes, Beirut, 1391/1971, p. 15.
Abū Jaʿfar Ṭūsī, Fehrest kotob al-Šīʿa, Beirut, 1403/1983.
(Etan Kohlberg)
Originally Published: December 15, 2000
Last Updated: December 15, 2000
