جستاري در باب نسبت كتاب الضعفاء به ابن غضايري

An Enquiry into the Attribution of the Book "AI-Duʹafa" to lbn al-Ghadaʹiri

Ahmad b. Husayn b. ʹAbd Allah al-Ghadaʹiri, known as Ibn al-Ghadaʹri (d. in the first half of fifth/twelfth century), has authored Al-duʹafaʹ wa al-Madhmumin known as " Rijal-i Ibn al-Ghadaʹiri in order to introduce the suspected, disreputable, and lacking in authority rijals and narrators in the realm of Shiʹa traditions. Since the seventh/fourteen century - after the appearance of this book - the Shiʹa authorities and rijal experts have brought up different viewpoints concerning lbn al-Ghadaʹiri and his book Al-duʹafa. Contemporary scholars, Shaykh Aqa Buzurg-i Tehrani and Ayatollah Khuʹi, have not approved the attribution of Al-duʹafaʹ to lbn al-Ghadaʹiri, as per his authenticity and eminence of dignity, ruling out the possibility that lbn al-Ghadaʹiri might have written a book in which a great number of Shiʹa rijals and narrators have been debilitated. The writer has - in view of the opinions of the experts - first introduced different aspects of the two scholarsʹ outlooks and then has made a critical review of them. In the end, he has found and expressed the reasons for the contradiction of the above viewpoint in Ayatollah Khuʹiʹs words and approach.