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What is the first book authored on the biographies of the narrators of the Six Books, and what is the name of its author?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The first to author biographies of the narrators in the Six Books was Ibn Asakir, in his book "Al-Mu'jam Al-Mushtamil ala Dhikr Asma' Shuyukh Al-A'immah An-Nubal," in which he briefly confined himself to the shaykhs of the authors of the Six Books. Then Abd Al-Ghani Al-Maqdisi authored the book "Al-Kamal fi Asma' Ar-Rijal" to include all the narrators of the Six Books, but he did not completely encompass them. Then Al-Mizzi came and authored "Tahdhib Al-Kamal fi Asma' Ar-Rijal," correcting what "Al-Kamal" missed and adding to it. Scholars gave great attention to this book and wrote many works based on it, among them "Tadhhib At-Tahdhib" by Al-Dhahabi. Finally, Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani authored "Tahdhib At-Tahdhib," a concise version of "Tahdhib Al-Kamal" with additions and corrections, and then abridged it further into "Taqrib At-Tahdhib."

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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