Ways to Recognize the Religious Sect of Unknown or Incognito Narrators through Textual Analysis

Among the ways to verify the authenticity of hadiths attributed to Imams (AS) is evaluating their sanads (chain of transmitters). At this stage, ridjāl scholars sometimes could not recognize a narrator’s religious sect and thus have called him/her majhūl (unknown) or muhmal (incognito). Knowing the beliefs of such narrators, in addition to validating the sanad, has a great impact on the use of their narrations by jurists, theologians, commentators, historians, etc. The present study, which is done by the descriptive-analytical method based on library sources, has examined those narrations that the rijāl scholars have called some of their transmitters unknown or incognito. It seeks to recognize the sect of such narrators through their sayings. It tries to achieve their sect by analyzing their narrations. In conclusion, some criteria can be useful to recognize them, including: “the method of citing the Imam (as) in narrating”, “reflection on the beliefs of the narrator in narrating”, “the orientation of the narrator in narrating”, “paying attention to the method  of Questioning the Imam”, “comparing the content of the narration with the jurisprudential ruling or Shiite theological teachings”, “comparing the Imam’s answer to the question of the unknown or incognito narrator with the known one”, and “the method of narrator in mentioning the Imam”.