Ilm al Rijal in Shiaism

Translator's note: Original Arabic text is posted at the bottom.

Buhuth fi Ilmur Rijal (Discourses on the study of Hadith Narrators) by Ayatullah Muhammad Asif al Muhsini (The greatest living Shia scholar of rijal), Page 51-52:

Shia scholars of Ilm al Rijal, such as Shaikh Tusi, Shaikh Najashi and others, were not present in the age of the companions of the Prophet (pbuh), Imam Ali (as) or the latter Imams (as), which could enable them (Shia Rijal scholars) to issue statements in their favour based on direct contact. Therefore it is necessary for their (Shia rijal scholars') verdicts on hadith narrators to be based either on assumptions, verdicts issued via direct contact which had reached them through the generations, or it is possible that some of their verdicts are based on the former and others on the latter. There is no fourth way.

So essentially, none of the verdicts deducted via these methods are authoritative, since the first method is based on conjecture therefore it is not authoritative for us because the intelligent people rely on the word of the trustworthy person, only on the perception and what is close to it, without any far fetched conjectures. As for the second method, so most of the tawtheeqs (declaration of a narrator being reliable) are mursal (not mentioning the original source) due to the lack of mention of the issuer of the verdicts (on hadith narrators) in the books of rijal most of the time.

Mursal reports are not relied on. Yes, a number of tawtheeqs have been reported with sanad (chain of narration), such as in the book Rijal al Kashi. Such reports are without a doubt authoritative and reliable when their isnad (chains of narration) are reliable.

So the result is that mursal tawtheeqs are akin to Shaikh Tusi saying Imam al Sadiq (as) said so and so, without mentioning the sanad of the hadith and therefore it would not be acceptable for us. Therefore, similarly if Shaikh Tusi reports that Mus'adah b. Sudqah was among the companions of Imam al Sadiq (as) and he is thiqah (trustworthy), then this report is no different from the hadith mentioned without the sanad. So if the former is unacceptable then how can the latter be acceptable?

I had asked Ayatullah Khoei regarding this problem while I was his student in Najaf (Iraq), but he did not have a sufficient answer and would say, "when my book on Rijal has been published then find your answer in it". So when the book was published, I saw that it answered only my first question regarding whether the tawtheeqs are based on conjecture, without answering the second question, which was more important for me, regarding the verdicts on rijal being based on mursal reports. So I asked him again.

And also, the book was not able to establish that all the tawtheeqs are based on reported statements, rather, it only proved that most of them are based on reported statements and not all of them are based on conjecture, and this amount is established by studying the books of Rijal. However, this was not sufficient (to answer the question) as you know.

And I had presented this question to a group of contemporary scholars such as Ayatullah Muhsin al Hakim, Ayatullah Hilli (in the shrine of Imam Ali), Ayatullah Milani (in the shrine of Imam al Reda) and Ayatullah Khomeini (in Najaf) and others, as well as a group of scholars in Qum, but none of them had an adequate answer.