Does Ay Khamanei Really Reject Our Rijal Books?

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Ayatolah Ali Khamenei says in his book ‘Usul al-arba’a fi ilmi Rijal’ pg 50-51: “According to the experts of this art (Ilm Hadith) our Rijaal Books Rijal Najashi, Rijal Kashi, Barqi, Ghadaeri etc have been distorted and displacements have taken place and they have been damaged greatly.  The authentic copies/versions of these books have not reached the sons of our generation.”

ايت الله العظمي علي خامنه اي: بناءً على ما ذكره الكثير من خبراء هذا الفن، أن نسخ كتاب الفهرست كأكثر الكتب الرجالية القديمة المعتبرة الأخرى مثل كتاب الكشي والنجاشي والبرقي والغضائري قد ابتليت جميعاً بالتحريف والتصحيف، ولحقت بها الأضرار الفادحة، ولم تصل منها لأبناء هذا العصر نسخة صحيحة.

الأصول الأربعة في علم الرجال سماحة آية الله العظمى السيد علي الخامنئي صفحه 50 و 51

Scan + Farsi translation:

 

 

 

 

 

This is a question - not an accusation!

Edited January 3, 2015 by Tawheed313

[mesbah]

first: the book is originally in farsi and has been translated to arabic by Majed al-Gharbawi

 

from the book (original farsi):

این چهار کتاب که خوشبختانه در طول زمان از دستبرد حوادث مصون مانده و اصل آنها تا زمان حاضر باقی است و بعضی از آنها مکرر به طبع رسیده، عبارت است از: اختیار الرجال، الفهرست، الرجال (هر سه تألیف شیخ طوسی) و کتاب فهرست، معروف به رجال نجاشی... این قرن را به خاطرتألیف این چهار کتاب باید سرآمد قرنهای پیشین و نقطه اوج فعالیتهای رجالی تا آن روز دانست.

 

arabic translation:

 

وقد بقيت هذه الكتب الاربعة ـ ومن حسن الحظ ـ محفوظة مصونة بعيدة عن يد الحوادث والاقدار طوال هذه الحقبة الزمنية الطويلة ولا تزال اُصولها موجودة حتى الآن ، حيث طبع بعضها عدة مرات . وتلك هي: اختيار الرجال .

الفهرست .

الرجال .

وهذه الكتب الثلاثة من تاليف الشيخ ابي جعفر محمد بن الحسن الطوسي (المتوفى سنه 460هـ).

كتاب الفهرست المعروف برجال النجاشي تاءليف احمد بن عليالنجاشي (المتوفى سنة 450)(20).

وقد كانت هذه الكتب الاربعة ـ دوماً ـ موضع اهتمام الخبراءواعتمادهم خلال القرون المتوالية على تاليفها، ولذا ـ وكما سنذكر تفصيل ذلك ـ فقد جرت على هذه الكتب اعمال كثيرة من قبيل الترتيب والتبويب والجمع والتفصيل ، ولذا يجب ان نعتبر القرن الذي تمّ فيه تاليف الكتب الاربعة هو قمة تلك القرون السابقة لانه مثّل اوج الحركة الرجالية آنذاك.

http://library.tebyan.net/newindex.aspx?PageSize=1&NAVIGATEMODE=CommonLibrary&PARENTID=0&PageIndex=4&CONTENT=&PERSONALID=0&METADATAID=36737&VOLUME=1&BOOKID=107423&PID=102834

 

these four books that fortunately have remained untouched from any change and have survived completely to our present day and some of them have numerous prints are: Ikhtiyar al-rijal, al-fihrist, al-rijal (all the three by al-Shaykh al-Tusi) and the book al-fihrist, reputable as the Rijal of Najashi, ... because of the compilation of these books, fifth century (hijri) must be considered the result of the past and peak of rijal activities of that time.

 

http://www.rasanews.ir/NSite/FullStory/News/?Id=89951

[mesbah]

the book is a defense of Shia rijal tradition. he traces back the roots of shia rijal even earlier than sunni rijal and criticizes Siyuti (sunni scholar) 

those who know arabic can read it from the beginning. 

http://library.tebyan.net/newindex.aspx?PageSize=1&NAVIGATEMODE=CommonLibrary&PARENTID=0&PageIndex=1&CONTENT=&PERSONALID=0&METADATAID=36737&VOLUME=1&BOOKID=107423&PID=102834

(first two pages is an introduction by ayatollah Taskhiri.)

 

however in that specific part, the author is depending on other "experts" as he later specifies:

وقد كتب العلامة الكلباسي بهذا الصدد: ان (اكثر النسخ الحالية للفهرست لا تخلو من الغلط والتصحيف ، وكما قال بعض المختصّين باءن اكثرالنسخ المتداولة في هذا الزمان قد تعرّضت للتلاعب والتصحيف ، وقدتصدّى المحقق الشيخ سليمان البحراني (المتوفى 1121هـ) لشرح وترتيب وتصحيح هذا الكتاب ، حيث أصلح فيأكثر تراجمه الأخطاء الناشئة من أقلام الكتّاب ، إلاّ انه لم ينجز من ذلك سوى الاسماء المصدرة بالالف فقط(70)

 

(he says its other people's opinion, Sh. Kalbasi and Sh. Suliyman Bahrani, and he relies on there opinion to reach a conclusion in what to do in cases where these sources have contradicting positions on a certain individual, something technical)

 

anyone can take parts out of the original context (even from the Qur'an) and make it seems as blasphemy.

Edited January 3, 2015 by mesbah

[Al-Englisi]

Bismillah

 

AsSalaam,

 

Could you also post the original Farsi version too please. 

[Islamic Salvation]

There is Tadlis in the translation, the Sayyid said كأكثر الكتب الرجالية القديمة المعتبرة الاخرى - 'like most of the other ancient books of Rijal which are trusted/relied upon (i.e. Mu'tabara) like the book of al-Kashi ....' - note that their translation does not mention or translate the word - ‘Mu’tabara’.

Don’t you think that if he is calling them Mu’tabara and yet acknowledging that they have the Tashif and Tahrif then he is contradicting himself big time?

The occurrence of Tashif and Tahrif in these books is solely a result of copyist errors, scribal variants, and interpolation in the sense that in some rare portions - the footnotes of the copyists and commentators have entered into the main text of the works.

But this has occurred in varying degrees to all books, show me a book from that period from us or the Ahl al-Sunnah that does not have any variation in wordings based on different manuscripts.

As for the 'Nuskha as-Sahiha', then it is meant the original copies [which would be free from all defects], it is true that these handwritten copies from the original authors have not reached us [but they reached for example - Ibn Dawud and Allamah al-Hilli], just as they have not reached the Sunnis for most of their works, it does not mean that the works were not transmitted down through acknowledged methods of Haml.

More importantly, through Tahqiq, the difference between different manuscripts are realized and the original wordings is preserved, thus most defects can be remedied as has been done in some of the published editions.

And this is what Sayyid al-Khamenei was trying to contend in raising such points, engaging in a scholarly discussion within an academic environment about how to deal with some manuscriptal variations, little did he know that his words will be twisted by Salafi Da'is on the internet, who have not read the whole work.

So for example he goes on to say in the same book:

إذاً ففي أي موضع لا يتطابق النقل بين نسخ الفهرست الموجودة مع ما ينقله ابن داود عن الكتاب المذكور، يجب أن يقدم ما ينقله ابن داود على غيره بدون تأمل، وأن يعدّ نقله حجة كذلك؛ لأن من المحتمل قوياً والمعقول أنه قد تم تصحيح ومقابلة تلك النسخة مع مخطوطة الشيخ الطوسي

 

'Therefore, in any instance where their is a difference in quotation between what is in the present manuscripts of the Fihrist and what was quoted by Ibn Dawud from the mentioned book (i.e. Fihrist), it is neccesary to prefer what was quoted by Ibn Dawud over someone other than him without any hesitation, and his (Ibn Dawud's) version will be seen as the decisive one in such instances, because it is most probable that his (Ibn Dawud's) version had undergone a Tashih and a comparison with the manuscript that was in the handwriting of the Shaykh Tusi (which had reached him)'.

We have to ask ourselves - are the Tashifat and in some cases Tahrifat in any way changing the intended meaning? In most cases No.
Are they present in all copies of the work? No, the true version is mostly preserved in the better preserved manuscripts or the older ones as demonstrated above.

But, they make it seem that Sayyid al-Khamenei has no regard for these works, or does not recommend using them, while if they had read the whole book they would have realized that he considers them authoritative.

He says for example about the Fihrist Genre:

يعتبر هذا الكتب من أثمن كتب الشيعة القديمة في علم الرجال ومن المصادر المعتمدة لدى علماء هذا الفن

 

'These books are considered the most valuable books among the Shia and the most ancient in Ilm al-Rijal, and the depended upon books in this field'

In other words, their has not occurred fabrication and premeditated additions or deletions for biased motives (which have permeated the manuscripts), and that is why a part of this quotation is being used to allude to something more sinister that has not been demonstrated to have occurred.

Edited January 13, 2015 by Islamic Salvation