Imams in the science of impugnment and validation hadith narrators (Jarh and Ta'dil) and their categories

Critics (munaqqids) inquired the narrators who took place in the chain of hadith and evaluated their reliability in order to transmit the hadiths in a trustworthy way. They observed some criteria in the process of impugnment and validation, and they expressed their opinions as a result of their independent reasoning. Imams of impugnment and validation were put in three categories by scholars terms of the ways they follow in that process. Accordingly, the imams who put forward strict criteria were called mutashaddid; who put forward permissive criteria were called mutasâhil and who observed the middle way were called mu'tadil. In the process of inquiring the authenticity of hadiths, occasionally some problems appeared as a result of not observing the criteria. This study aims to identify the closeness of scholars to above mentioned categories in their criticizing attitudes, and to contribute to the preferences for 'impugnment and validation' in controversial points. Reasons for calling an imam mutashaddid, mutasâhil or mu'tadil, topics in which their attitudes were dominant and objections to them in terms of these topics are also discussed.