Tajrid Asma' al-Sahaba

Tajrid Asma' al-Sahaba ("The Extracted Names of the Companions") is by the hadith master Shams al-Din Abu 'Abd Allah Muhammad ibn Ahmad ibn 'Uthman al-Dhahabi (d. 748 AH). He opens by saying that this is an extraction of the names of the Companions from the work of 'Izz al-Din Ibn al-Athir al-Jazari, a fine and exhaustive book of the Companions named in the four works written on them — those of Ibn Manda, Abu Nu'aym and Abu Musa of Isfahan (a supplement to Ibn Manda's), and that of Abu 'Umar Ibn 'Abd al-Barr — together with Ibn al-Athir's own additions. ²

Al-Dhahabi explains that Ibn al-Athir marked each Companion by source: (د) for Ibn Manda, (ع) for Abu Nu'aym, (ب) for Ibn 'Abd al-Barr and (س) for Abu Musa al-Madini. ³ He added marks of his own: a name written in red is a Successor whose report is mursal; a name crossed with a red mark is an error; (ع) means the six books narrate from him, and the sign of any one of the six that its author includes him; another sign marks those in Ahmad's Musnad; a sign at the start marks those with one or two hadiths in the Musnad of Baqi ibn Makhlad; and a name in green is one of the Companion-poets recorded by Abu al-Fath Ibn Sayyid al-Nas. ⁴ The editor observes that al-Dhahabi followed this scheme throughout, though he lapsed from it in many places. ⁵

Al-Dhahabi added a large group from the "history of the Companions who settled in Hims", many from [[work/tarikh-dimashq|the History of Damascus]], a number from Ahmad's Musnad, a group of the Companions in Baqi ibn Makhlad's Musnad, several from glosses on [[work/al-istiab|al-Isti'ab]], several more — women especially — from [[work/al-tabaqat-al-kubra-ibn-sad|Ibn Sa'd's Tabaqat]], and some of the Companion-poets. ³ A marginal note in one manuscript, which the editor gives as the author's, says that Ibn al-Athir, like others, neglected the Tabaqat and so missed many men and women. ⁶

Al-Dhahabi quotes and comments on estimates of the number of Companions, and reckons that those named in his book come to some eight thousand persons, most of them little known. ⁷ See How many Companions were there?

He then records Abu Musa al-Madini's account of Ibn Manda's book and of Yahya ibn Manda's supplement, judging that Abu Musa's work came out as a large volume containing fabrications and oddities and missing people found in al-Isti'ab, which Abu Musa had not seen; the same passage mentions a supplement to al-Isti'ab by a scholar of the Maghrib that was arranged together with the additions. He then summarises Ibn al-Athir's chains to the books he draws on: al-Tha'labi's Tafsir, al-Wahidi's al-Wasit, the two Sahihs, the Muwatta', the Musnad, the Sunan, Abu Ya'la's Musnad, Ibn Ishaq's Maghazi in Yunus ibn Bukayr's transmission, Ibn Abi 'Asim's al-Ahad wa-al-Mathani and al-Azdi's History of Mosul. ⁸

The book opens with the letter hamza, its first entry being Abi al-Lahm al-Ghifari, and each entry gives, in a line or two, the name, what distinguishes the person, who narrated from him, and the sigla of the sources. ⁹ It has a section on "those known only as 'a Companion of the Messenger of God ﷺ'", where al-Dhahabi says: "Whenever I say of a man 'only' and add nothing, the original says he was a Companion." ¹⁰

The book was first printed at Hyderabad in 1315 AH; some of the manuscripts used attributed it to Ibn al-Athir, and the edition's corrector, Hasan ibn Ahmad al-Hanafi, added a note showing — on the strength of Ibn Hajar's statement in the introduction to al-Isaba that al-Dhahabi extracted the names in Ibn al-Athir's book with additions — that the book is al-Dhahabi's and not Ibn al-Athir's. ^{11 12} One manuscript is in the hand of al-Bishtaki (d. 828 AH), copied from Ibn al-Wani's copy that was read to the author; its first page reads: "The book of the extraction of the Companions whom Ibn al-Athir recorded, abridged by the hadith master al-Dhahabi, who added many names." ¹³ The Egyptian National Library copy (793 AH) bears the title al-Isaba fi Tajrid al-Sahaba, which the editor found no scholar using. ¹⁴

The editor of the Dar al-Birr edition took as his base the Murad Molla manuscript in Turkey (no. 748), copied by Muhammad ibn Abi al-Walid Ibn al-Shihna al-Hanafi in 836 AH, which carries valuable glosses transferred from the copy of his teacher Sibt Ibn al-'Ajami — who had himself copied onto it the glosses of Abu al-Fath Ibn Sayyid al-Nas and of Ibn al-Amin of Cordoba on al-Isti'ab. ¹⁵

• First printing, Da'irat al-Ma'arif al-Nizamiyya press, Hyderabad Deccan, 1315 AH, vol. 1. ¹¹
• Dar al-Ma'rifa's photographic reprint of it, Beirut; vol. 1 ends at entry 4676 in the letter 'ayn. ¹⁶
• The Dar al-Birr Society critical edition, Dubai (academic theses series 13), vol. 1 from Abi al-Lahm to 'Uyayna, based on six manuscripts. ¹⁷