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الْبَابُ السَّابِعُ: فِي الْعُلُومِ الْمُشْتَرَكَةِ بَيْنَ السَّنَدِ وَالْمَتْنِ · Book Seven: Sciences Common to Isnad and Matn
صَدْرُ الْبَابِ السَّابِعِ · Opening of Book Seven, before its numbered chapters
الِاعْتِبَارُ · I'tibar (Corroboration-Checking)
The author's own definition: take a hadith some narrator relates, then trace its routes and chains. The goal is to find out if another narrator relates that very same hadith, in the same words or the same meaning, whether through the same chain or through a different Companion. If no one else relates it at all, neither in wording nor in meaning, that tells you something too.
- [النَّصُّ] هو أن نأتي إلى حديث لبعض الرواة فنتتبع الطرق والأسانيد لنعرف هل شاركه في رواية ذلك الحديث راو غيره من الرواة بأن يرويه لفظه أو بمعناه، من نفس السند أو من طريق صحابي آخر، أو لم يشاركه في روايته أحد لا في اللفظ ولا في المعنى
Itr adds an important correction here: i'tibar is not its own separate category sitting next to mutabaa and shahid, the way it might look. It is simply the search itself, the work of checking the chains to see whether a mutabaa or a shahid actually exists for a given report.
- [لَيْسَ قِسْمًا ثَالِثًا] فالاعتبار إذن ليس قسما مقابلا للمتابعات والشواهد كما قد يتوهم، إنما هو البحث في الأسانيد لمعرفة وجود المتابعات والشواهد، أو عدم وجودها
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الْفَصْلُ الْأَوَّلُ: فِي تَفَرُّدِ الْحَدِيثِ · Chapter One: Singularity of a Hadith
الْغَرِيبُ وَالْفَرْدُ · The Rare (Gharib) and Singular (Fard)
The hadith a single narrator is alone in relating, whether alone from an imam whose hadith is gathered or from a non-imam.
- [النَّصُّ] هو الحديث الذي تفرد به راويه، سواء تفرد به عن إمام يجمع حديثه أو عن راو غير إمام
Fard, its synonym, is of two kinds: fard mutlaq, absolute, and fard nisbi, relative.
- [التَّمْهِيدُ] وهو قسمان: الفرد المطلق، والفرد النسبي
- No narrator anywhere relates it except this one. This matches gharib exactly, in both chain and wording, and shadh and munkar both fall under this same absolute category too.
- [الْفَرْدُ الْمُطْلَقُ] ما تفرد به راويه عن جميع الرواة لم يروه أحد غيره. وهذا يطابق الغريب إسنادا ومتنا، ويدخل فيه أيضا الشاذ والمنكر
- The singularity holds only relative to some specific angle, not absolutely. The author names three real angles this can happen through.
- [الْفَرْدُ النِّسْبِيُّ] ما يقع فيه التفرد بالنسبة إلى جهة خاصة أيا كانت تلك الجهة
- Among reliable narrators, only this one relates the hadith from that particular reliable narrator, even if less reliable narrators also relate it from him.
- [الْوَجْهُ الْأَوَّلُ] تفرد الثقة عن ثقة، بأن لا يروي الحديث عن راو ثقة إلا هذا الثقة
- A narrator is the only one relating the hadith from a specific teacher, even though the same hadith reaches us through other routes from other people entirely.
- [الْوَجْهُ الثَّانِي] تفرد الراوي بالحديث عن راو، بأن لا يرويه غيره، وإن كان مرويا من وجوه أخرى عن غيره
- An entire region's narrators are alone in relating a report nobody outside that region relates. Example: Aisha's report that the Prophet ﷺ prayed the funeral prayer for Suhayl ibn Bayda inside the mosque.
- [الْوَجْهُ الثَّالِثُ] تفرد أهل بلد أو قطر بحديث لا يرويه غيرهم، كحديث عائشة أنه ﷺ صلى عليه سهيل بن بيضاء في المسجد
- Al-Hakim's own comment on that report: the people of Madina alone narrate this practice.
- [كَلَامُ الْحَاكِمِ] قال الحاكم: تفرد أهل المدينة بهذه السنة
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الْفَصْلُ الثَّانِي: فِي تَعَدُّدِ رُوَاةِ الْحَدِيثِ مَعَ اتِّفَاقِهِمْ · Chapter Two: Multiple Narrators in Agreement
الْمُتَوَاتِرُ · The Mutawatir
What a large group, whose agreement on a lie is inconceivable, relate from the like of them all the way to the end of the chain, with sense perception as their basis.
- [النَّصُّ] الحديث المتواتر: هو الذي رواه جمع كثير يؤمن تواطؤهم على الكذب عن مثلهم، إلى انتهاء السند، وكان مستندهم الحس
"A large group" fixes no number. Some scholars tried to fix one, at seventy, or forty, or twelve, or as few as four, but Itr holds that none of that convinces. What counts is that certain knowledge of the report's truth actually results.
- [الْعَدَدُ] لكن المختار أن ليس في شيء من ذلك مقنع، إنما العبرة بحصول العلم اليقيني بصدق الخبر
"From the like of them to the end of the chain" rules out a report that falls below mutawatir level in some layer, in the ahad range, and only later gathers mutawatir numbers. Innama al-a'malu bi al-niyyat is the case in point: single at the start of its chain, mutawatir only in the middle, so it is not mutawatir.
- [الشَّرْطُ] خرج به ما كان آحاديا في بعض الطبقات ثم رواه عدد التواتر بعد ذلك، فإنه لا يكون متواترا
"Sense perception as their basis" rules out matters of belief that rest on reason, such as God's oneness, and purely rational propositions such as one being half of two. In those the authority is reason, not reports.
- [مُسْتَنَدُ الْحِسِّ] أخرج القضايا الاعتقادية التي تستند إلى العقل، مثل وحدانية الله وأخرج القضايا العقلية الصرفة مثل كون الواحد نصف الاثنين، فإن العبرة فيها للعقل لا للأخبار
Two kinds: lafzi, in the wording, and ma'nawi, in the meaning.
- [الْأَقْسَامُ] يقسم العلماء الحديث المتواتر إلى قسمين: متواتر لفظي، ومتواتر معنوي
- Lafzi: every narrator relates it in one and the same wording.
- [اللَّفْظِيُّ] أما المتواتر اللفظي: فهو ما تواترت روايته على لفظ واحد يرويه كل الرواة
- Ma'nawi: a group for whom two things are impossible, that they colluded on a lie and that a falsehood came from them by coincidence, report different incidents that all share one common point, and it is that shared point which is mutawatir. Example: raising the hands in dua, reported in about a hundred hadiths, each about a different occasion.
- [الْمَعْنَوِيُّ] وأما المتواتر المعنوي: فهو أن ينقل جماعة يستحيل تواطؤهم على الكذب أو وقوعه منهم مصادفة، فينقلوا وقائع مختلفة تشترك كلها في أمر معين، فيكون هذا الأمر متواترا
الْمَشْهُورُ · The Well-Known (Mashhur)
Itr adopts Ibn Hajar's definition: a hadith whose chains are countable and number more than two. "Countable" rules out the mutawatir, which is tied to no fixed number. "More than two" rules out the gharib, which has one narrator, and the aziz, which has two.
- [النَّصُّ] ماله طرق محصورة بأكثر من اثنين
Put simply: a group narrating from a group, without reaching the level of the mutawatir.
- [الْحَاصِلُ] والحاصل أن الحديث المشهور هو ما رواه جماعة عن جماعة، ولم يبلغ حد التواتر
Being well known does not make a report sound. Numbers alone meant nothing to the hadith scholars unless the chains themselves were sound, or at least fit to strengthen each other, so a mashhur hadith may be sahih, hasan or weak.
- [الْحُكْمُ] ومن هنا كان الحديث المشهور منقسما من حيث القبول أو الرد إلى ثلاثة أقسام: الصحيح، والحسن، والضعيف
Fame is also graded by who it is famous among: the hadith scholars alone, scholars and public together, the jurists, the usul scholars, the grammarians, the literary crowd, or ordinary people. What is famous on people's tongues may rest on a single chain, or on no chain at all.
- [مَوْقِعُ الشُّهْرَةِ] وقد يطلق على ما اشتهر على ألسنة الناس، ولو روي بإسناد واحد، بل ولو لم يكن له إسناد أصلا
الْمُسْتَفِيضُ · The Widespread (Mustafid)
The word comes from water overflowing and spreading out.
- [اللُّغَةُ] المستفيض مأخوذ في اللغة من فاض الماء إذا سال وانتشر
As a technical term it is disputed, and it belongs mostly to the usul scholars rather than the hadith scholars.
- [الِاصْطِلَاحُ] وأما في الاصطلاح فاختلف فيه، وأكثر ما يستعمل عند الأصوليين
One group of scholars treats it as simply another name for the mashhur. Others hold that the two differ.
- [النَّصُّ] وهو الحديث المشهور عن جماعة من العلماء، وقيل بأن ثمة فرقا بينهما
Those who separate them disagree over which is wider. Some say the mashhur is wider, because the mustafid must keep the same number of narrators at the start of the chain, in the middle and at the end, while the mashhur need not. Others say the opposite.
- [الْفَرْقُ] فمنهم من قال: المشهور أعم من المستفيض، لأن المستفيض يكون في ابتدائه وانتهائه وأثنائه سواء، والمشهور ليس كذلك. ومنهم من عكس فجعل المستفيض أعم من المشهور
A third view: it is whatever the umma received with acceptance, however many narrated it, which makes it the same thing as the mutawatir. Ibn Hajar leaned this way, and said in Sharh al-Nukhba that it is not one of the questions of this science.
- [قَوْلٌ ثَالِثٌ] وقيل: إنه ما تلقته الأمة بالقبول، من غير اعتبار عدد، فهو والمتواتر بمعنى واحد على هذا القول
الْعَزِيزُ · The Rare-Supported (Aziz)
Ibn Hajar's wording the author endorses: that no fewer than two narrate it from no fewer than two.
- [النَّصُّ] أن لا يرويه أقل من اثنين عن أقل من اثنين
الْمُتَابَعَةُ وَالشَّاهِدُ · The Mutabaa and Shahid
Mutabaa is when a second narrator is found relating the very same hadith, reconnecting with the first narrator's chain either at his own teacher or further up. A shahid is different: a hadith from another Companion which resembles the report whose singularity is suspected. Both are corroboration tools scholars use, through i'tibar, to confirm whether a report that looks solitary (gharib/fard) actually has support elsewhere.
- [النَّصُّ] المتابعة: «أن يوافق راوي الحديث على ما رواه من قبل راو آخر فيرويه عن شيخه أو عمن فوقه». الشاهد: «حديث مروي عن صحابي آخر يشابه الحديث الذي يظن تفرده»
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الْفَصْلُ الثَّالِثُ: فِي اخْتِلَافِ رِوَايَةِ الْحَدِيثِ · Chapter Three: Divergence Among the Narrations
زِيَادَاتُ الثِّقَاتِ · Additions by Reliable Narrators (Ziyadat al-Thiqat)
What a reliable narrator is alone in including in his narration of a hadith, whether a single word or a whole clause, in the chain or in the text. Itr calls this an important field the hadith scholars gave real attention to, searching chains and narrations and working hard over it, before disagreeing considerably over its ruling, disagreement severe enough that some modern writers have gotten the topic wrong.
- [النَّصُّ] زيادة الثقة: هي ما يتفرد به الثقة في رواية الحديث من لفظة أو جملة في السند أو المتن
The commonest form: narrators differing over whether a report is connected or mursal, or over whether it is elevated to the Prophet or stopped at a Companion. Itr's own preferred ruling, against the majority of hadith scholars who favored the mursal or stopped version as more cautious: prefer the connected, elevated version instead, so long as its narrator is a precise, retentive memorizer, and there is no stronger indicator favoring the other version. He cites al-Khatib al-Baghdadi's reasoning: a narrator relating a report as mursal on one occasion does not impugn or contradict him relating it connected on another, since he may simply have forgotten the link once and recalled it later, or narrated both ways deliberately for his own purpose; forgetting does not get to overrule remembering.
- [الزِّيَادَةُ فِي السَّنَدِ] القسم الأول: الزيادة في السند: وفيها ما يكثر من اختلاف الرواة في وصل الحديث وإرساله. وكذا في رفعه ووقفه
One narrator relates an extra word or clause in the wording of a hadith that no one else relates. Itr says scholars disagreed over this even more than over the chain-addition case, until Ibn al-Salah (d. 643H) proposed a resolution that settles most of the dispute, splitting it into three kinds.
- [الزِّيَادَةُ فِي الْمَتْنِ] القسم الثاني: الزيادة في المتن: وهي أن يروي أحد الرواة زيادة لفظة أو جملة في متن الحديث لا يرويها غيره
- The addition actually conflicts with what the other reliable narrators report. Ruling: rejected.
- [الْمُعَارَضَةُ] النوع الأول: أن تخالف الزيادة ما رواه الثقات، فهذه حكمها الرد
- No conflict or contradiction at all with what others report. Ruling: accepted, whether it comes from the same narrator telling it once without the addition and once with it, or from him including it while others omit it, since it then simply stands as a separate report this narrator is alone in preserving, and is accepted from him on that basis.
- [عَدَمُ الْمُعَارَضَةِ] النوع الثاني: أن لا يكون فيه منافاة أو مخالفة أصلا لما رواه غيره. فهذه تقبل
- A meaningful word added that the other narrators do not report, which either cuts down the hadith's unrestricted wording or alters some part of how it describes things, without flatly contradicting it. Itr's named example: Abu Malik al-Ashja'i alone added the word "its dust" to Hudhayfa's hadith that the whole earth was made a place of prayer and its earth a means of purification; the rest of the narrators left it general to the whole earth's surface. Ibn al-Salah (d. 643H) did not commit to a ruling for this middle case; Malik and al-Shafi'i (d. 204H) accepted it since there is no real conflict, Abu Hanifa (d. 150H) and those who agreed with him rejected it since the addition changes a legal ruling, which makes it a conflicting addition in substance. This exact disagreement is why the Hanafis permitted dry ablution with any earthy substance such as rock or gravel, while the Shafi'is restricted it to dust specifically, following the added wording.
- [الْحَالَةُ الْمُتَوَسِّطَةُ] النوع الثالث: ما يقع بين هاتين المرتبتين، كزيادة لفظة معنوية لم يذكرها سائر رواته فيخالف الزائد إطلاق الحديث، أو شيئا من وصفه
- Itr endorses Ibn al-Salah's three-way split as the position he adopts, since it matches the hadith scholars' own governing rule that an accepted report must not be anomalous, shadh: a conflicting addition weaker than the rest of the narrations carrying the report is not accepted.
- [تَرْجِيحُ الْمُؤَلِّفِ] وهذا التقسيم هو الذي نرجحه ونأخذ به، لأنه يوافق قواعد المحدثين في أنه يشترط لقبول الحديث ألا يكون شاذا، فالزيادة المنافية ما دامت دون روايات الحديث في القوة فهي غير مقبولة
الشَّاذُّ · The Anomalous (Shadh)
What an accepted narrator relates contradicting one more worthy than him, by greater number or fuller precision; its opposite, al-mahfuz, is what the more reliable relates.
- [النَّصُّ] الشاذ ما رواه المقبول مخالفا لمن هو أولى منه لكثرة عدد أو زيادة حفظ
الْمُنْكَرُ · The Munkar
The author's first path: what a weak narrator relates contradicting the reliable; it stands opposite the maruf and is more strongly rejected than the shadh.
- [النَّصُّ] ما رواه الضعيف مخالفا للثقة
الْمُضْطَرِبُ · The Inconsistent (Mudtarib)
The hadith related by one narrator or more in differing, equally weighted versions, with nothing to prefer among them and no way to reconcile them.
- [النَّصُّ] هو الحديث الذي يروى من قبل راو واحد أو أكثر على أوجه مختلفة متساوية، لا مرجح بينها، ولا يمكن الجمع
الْمَقْلُوبُ · The Reversed
The hadith in which its narrator substituted one thing for another, in the chain or the text, by mistake or deliberately. The author calls this the most precise definition of it.
- [النَّصُّ] هو الحديث الذي أبدل فيه راويه شيئا بآخر في السند أو المتن سهوا أو عمدا
الْمُدْرَجُ · The Interpolated (Mudraj)
What is mentioned within the hadith, joined to it without separation, yet is not part of it.
- [النَّصُّ] ما ذكر في ضمن الحديث متصلا به من غير فصل وليس منه
They divided interpolation by where it occurs into two kinds: interpolation of the text and interpolation of the chain.
- [التَّمْهِيدُ] وقد قسموا الإدراج بحسب موضعه إلى قسمين: مدرج المتن، ومدرج الإسناد
- A narrator's own remark, explanation, or ruling gets folded straight into the hadith's wording without any marker that it is not the Prophet's speech, so a listener mistakes it for part of the original report. Example: in Aisha's hadith on the start of revelation, the clarifying phrase and that is worship was al-Zuhri's own gloss on the word withdrew, silently merged into the hadith text.
- [مُدْرَجُ الْمَتْنِ] ما ذكر في ضمن متن الحديث من قول بعض الرواة الصحابي أو من دونه موصولا بالحديث، من غير فصل بين الحديث وبين ذلك الكلام
- A narrator hears the same hadith from several people whose chains actually differ, then relates it under a single chain without disclosing that they differed, blending distinct routes into one.
- [مُدْرَجُ الْإِسْنَادِ] أن يسمع الراوي حديثا عن جماعة مختلفين في إسناده، فيرويه عنهم بإسناد واحد، ولا يبين اختلافهم
الْمُصَحَّفُ · The Misread (Musahhaf)
With the hadith scholars: altering a word in the hadith from its known form to another. The musahhaf changes the dotting, the muharraf changes the vowelling while the letters remain.
- [النَّصُّ] تحويل الكلمة في الحديث من الهيئة المتعارفة إلى غيرها
الْمُعَلَّلُ · The Defective (Muallal)
The hadith in which a defect undermining its soundness is detected while it outwardly appears sound; the author calls it the noblest and subtlest of the sciences. He prefers the term muall.
- [النَّصُّ] هو الحديث الذي اطلع فيه على علة تقدح في صحته، مع أن ظاهره السلامة منها
The alert scholar gathers the narrations of the one hadith and weighs them in chain and text; their disagreement and agreement guide him to the seat of the defect, with attendant indications. This is the most followed and easiest way.
- [الطَّرِيقَةُ] أن يجمع المحدث اليقظ روايات الحديث الواحد، ويوازن بينها سندا ومتنا فيرشده اختلافها واتفاقها على موطن العلة، مع قرائن تنضم لذلك تنبه العارف
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