Measuring Allamah al-Ḥillī’s commitment to isnad-orientedness in hadith criticism

In order for them to evaluate the traditions, the Imami scholars used the two terms of ṣaḥīḥ (authentic) and da‘īf (weak). Based on the indications one of which was the isnad of hadith, judged a hadith as being ṣaḥīḥ or da‘īf, until the theory of tarbī‘ (quadripartite) was applied by Allamah al-Ḥillī. He classified the hadiths based on their isnads to the four categories of ṣaḥīḥ (authentic), ḥasan (good), muwaththaq (reliable) and da‘īf (weak). Considering the numerous criticisms of the scholars on this evaluation method, we decided in this study to statistically investigate the commitment degree of Allamah al-Ḥillī in acting on the coinage of new terms and the isnad-orientedness. Based on the achieved results, he has not been committed, in many cases, to his terms and that the number of da‘īf traditions upon which he acted exceeds the total number of sahaih, ḥasan and muwathathaq hadiths. Therefore, despite the fact that he is among the pioneers in the isnad-oriented approach of the criticism of hadith, he has not applied this method in his works.