In the following list a number of people have been enumerated who appear time and again in the Tahdhīb (cf. note 5 of Ch. 4). They are arranged in chronological order according to the years in which they are reported to have died. I have tried in each case to collect the necessary evidence that points to their being the authors of books or treatises Ibn Ḥajar may have had at his disposal. Unfortunately, Ibn Ḥajar only rarely mentions the sources he quotes from by title. Ibn Ḥibbān's Kitāb ath-thiāt is in this respect an exception. But in many cases it is obvious from what particular books he quotes. Thus, when he says: qāla Ibn Sa'd, he cites from the Kitāb aṭ-ṭabaqāt al-kabīr and likewise when he says: qāla Ibn Abī Ḥātim ʿan abīhi (or words to that effect) what follows can easily be traced to Ibn Abī Ḥātim's Kitāb al-jarḥ wa′t-ta'dīl. Similarly, when he mentions Ya'qūb b. Sufyān (or simply: al-Fasawī), he quotes from this author's Kitāb al-ma'rifa wa ′t-taʿrīkh, recently edited by Akram Diyāʾ al-ʿUmarī, 3 vols, Bagdad 1974–6.

This list is confined to authors who flourished before 350/961 and whose works have not yet been made available in printed editions. I do not pretend that it is complete. On many occasions I came across names of people to whom no books on ḥadīth criticism in the widest sense of the word could be traced.