Al-Kamal fi ma`rifat al-rijal
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Al-Kamal fi ma`rifat al-rijal Arabic:(الكمال في معرفة الرجال) is a 10 volume collection by 12th century Islamic scholar Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi about Ilm ar-Rijal, The first book of this genre to include all books of the Six major Hadith collections. [1].
[edit] Impact
Yusuf ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Mizzi would create an edited and abridged version of this work, punctuated by places and countries of origin of the reporters in twelve volumes, named Tahdhib al-Kamal fi asma' al-rijal [1][2]
Further, one of al-Mizzi's gifted pupils, Al-Dhahabi, summarised his shaikh's work and produced two abridgements: a longer one called Tadhhib al-Tahdhib and a shorter one called Al-Kashif fi Asma' Rijal al-Kutub al-Sittah [2].
A similar effort with the work of al-Mizzi was made by Ibn Hajar Asqalani, who prepared a lengthy but abridged version, with about one- third of the original omitted, entitled Tahdhib al-Tahdhib[3] in twelve shorter volumes. Later, he abridged this further to a relatively-humble two- volume work called Taqrib al-Tahdhib [2].
The work of al-Dhahabi was not left unedited; al-Khazraji (Safi al-Din Ahmad b. 'Abdullah, d. after 923) summarised it and also made valuable additions, producing his Khulasah [2].
