An Assessment of Abu al-Mufaddal Sheibani’s Undermining [Tadh’eef] in Distorting and Forging Documents

Abu al-Mufaddal Sheibani (d. 387 AH/ 997 CE) is one of the prolific narrators who has numerous narrations in the sources of hadith and theology of Islamic sects and even a group of great scholars praise him for being a memorizer [hafiz]. However, he sometimes interfered and made non-committal interventions in the narrating narrations and documents, and a group of early rijalis [biographical evaluation specialists], such as a large number of Najashi’s teachers and some Sunni scholars of the fourth and fifth centuries such as Daraqutni and some students of Sheobani narration, debilitated him. Amon the Imami scholars such as Ibn Ghazairi also accuse him of forging documentation. But several scholars in recent centuries have accused predecessor rijali of being extremist or influenced by Sunni theological attitudes in undermining. Therefore, the main issue of the article is to find ways to judge these disputes. The research finding indicates that the critiques of these scholars on the undermining of their predecessors are incomplete and some historical distortions of Sheibani can be discovered by historical methods such as discussions concerning the classes [in bibliographical evaluation] and comparative studies of sources. Also, Sheibani, like some rival hadithi trends of the Imamia, has sometimes presented fake documents in support of the religion in retaliation.