but its even more perplexing because in his dreams he was being taught by imam suyuti himself .......... maybe he got the other 2 from imam a'zam, you just can't be sure, he has SO many teachers. in dreams.
a-ha! that is where the 400,000 figure tahir jhangvi picked from. in other words, he implies that he has knowledge of as many hadith a mujtahid should have. whether 400k hadith reached us in our age is secondary; and that jalaluddin suyuti himself had access to 200k that is what he had memorised and from which he consolidated (by removing duplicates) to about 50K in his jam'a al-jawmiy. if imam suyuti had access to 200,000 in 911AH, how come tahir has access to 400,000 which he claims to have "STUDIED" - unless of course, in his dreams which nobody can challenge. in your dreams, tahir.
http://www.livingislam.org/o/scht_e.html old but really informative, especially Imam Dhahabi's reprimands. a must read for ahl-ul-hadas
Brother I remember reading that it is stated in Ibn Qayyim’s I’lam al-Muwaqqi’īn that Imām Aĥmad bin Ĥanbal raĥimahullah gestured that 400000 Ĥadīth committed to memory would be enough to label one a mujtahid, however I don’t have the book with me to check.
InshAllah--if I have the chance--I'll ask a Sunni Sahih al-`Aqida `Alim on the meaning/difference between these two `istila, inshAllah
shaikh al-hadith or muhadith means a person who is invloved in teaching hadith. if muhadith knows 100,000 hadith with sanad and matan, he is known as hafiz al-hadith for example imam hafiz jalal ad-deen sayyuti. if he knows 300,000 ( or perhaps 500,000), he is known as hakim al-hadith (or hakim fil hadith ?). according to imam ahmed hanbal (may Allah be well pleased with him) a mujtahid should know 500,000 hadith by heart with both sanad and matan. just noted down from my memory, someone correct me if wrong.
what do these titles mean? does shaykh-ul-Hadith mean headteacher of a daru'l uloom [even though he does not teach Hadith]? does it mean the teacher of Hadith at a daru'l uloom? i read that a hafidh must know 100,000 aHadith [matn, sanad]. is there such a criterion for a shaykh-ul-Hadith? what about muHaddith? or, are they just titles that refer to someone who is a scholar and learned in Hadith without taking into account how many aHadith they know?