The great muhaddith and Imam of “Jarh wat Ta’deel”, Sibt Ibnul A’jami said, when we were listening to the Sunan of Daarquti or Ibn Majah (the one narrating this event forgot which one precisely) under the supervision of the great hadith master Sirajud-deen al-Bulqini, a man asked me in the Shaikh’s presence concerning the authenticity of a hadith that we just read. I said to the one reading, repeat the chain of narrators, so he did. In the chain Atiyyah al-Awfi was present, so I said, the muhadditheen agree that he is weak. Shaikh Bulqini retorted, it is not so. So as evidence, I mentioned the verdict of Allamah Zahabi (from Mughni where he said, the muhadditheen agree that he is weak). Shaikh Bulqini refuted Zahabi’s claim of consensus by stating that Imam Tirmithi has graded a hadith of his as hasan (sound).

By sitting in the company of his Shaikh, the great muhaddith Sibt Ibnul A’jami learnt an important principle of Jarh and Ta’deel that would not be found documented in any book.

The principle he learnt was called Tawtheeq Dhimni (التوثيق الضمني). Before we explain this, the student should know that the usual method of finding out if a narrator is strong or weak is to read the books of biographies and Asmaa-ur Rijaal. These books contain the classification of the muhadditheen concerning the narrators of hadith. Sibt had quoted from one such book called “al-Mughni” compiled by Hafiz Zahabi.

As for Tawtheeq Dhimni then it is a statement of a muhaddith which incorporates the endorsement of the reliability of a narrator. For instance in the narrator above, Atiyyah al-Awfi, when Imam Tirmithi grades a hadith, with the said narrator in the chain, as sound, this incorporates Tirmithi’s acknowledgment of his reliability as a narrator.

 Hafiz Ibnul A’jami then used this principle many a places in his annotations of Zahabi’s Asmaaur Rijaal book, al-Kaashif.

This rule applies to any other muhaddith the likes of Bukhari, Muslim, Ibn Khuzaimah, Ibn Hibban, Haakim, Bazzaar, Daarqutni, Baihaqi and others.

 There are two conditions that one should take heed to:

1. The chain should be ghareeb (only one chain for the hadith). Because if it is azeez (with two chains) or mashoor (three or more chains) then there is a possibility that the muhaddith authenticated the hadith due to the supporting chains of narration and not because he considered the narrator under discussion reliable.

 2. The muhaddith should be consistent in authenticating any hadith of the narrator under discussion, as sahih or hasan. If the muhaddith grades a hadith, in which the narrator under discussion is found, as weak, then one must research the issue more and see if there are other reasons of weakness that his classification can be applied to.

 (See Diraasaatul Kaashif by the Muhaddith of Madinah, Shaikh Muhammad Awwamah, may Allah preserve him, p. 153-154 & 266)