Function of Sheikh Tusi and Najjashi Lists in Completing the Sezgin Method in Restoring the Sources of Ancient Narrative Works (Case Study: al-Zuhd Hussein bin Said Ahwazi's Book)

Identifying the early written scholarly sources is an issue of great use and so an important albeit complicated and difficult one. Fuat Sezgin proposed and applied a systematic method for identifying the sources of early literature. This method has had many advantages but some criticisms have been directed at it as well. The origin of some of these criticisms is the lack of some information in Sunni bibliography literature. However the important information found in Tūsi’s and Najjashi’s Fihrists may be useful in improving Seguin’s method and identifying the sources of later works. In this paper we focus on Hossein ibn Said’s Kitab al-Zuhd and illustrate the great use of Tūsi’s and Najjashi’s Fihrists in improving Sezgin’s method for identifying the early written sources of Hadith literature. In doing so, some methods for distinction between collectors and transmitters in the chain of transmitters will be illustrated. According to Sezgin the last common link is the source of a given later work but it will be shown that through different ways other roles may be considered as well.