وَهِيَ أَسَانِيدُ عِنْدَ ذَوِي الْمَعْرِفَةِ بِالْأَخْبَارِ وَالرِّوَايَاتِ مِنْ صِحَاحِ الْأَسَانِيدِ، لَا نَعْلَمُهُمْ وَهَّنُوا مِنْهَا شَيْئًا قَطُّ، وَلَا الْتَمَسُوا فِيهَا سَمَاعَ بَعْضِهِمْ مِنْ بَعْضٍ؛ إِذِ السَّمَاعُ لِكُلِّ وَاحِدٍ مِنْهُمْ مُمْكِنٌ مِنْ صَاحِبِهِ غَيْرُ مُسْتَنْكَرٍ، لِكَوْنِهِمْ جَمِيعًا كَانُوا فِي الْعَصْرِ الَّذِي اتَّفَقُوا فِيهِ.
Translation: These are sound chains in the judgment of hadith specialists; Muslim knows of no weakening on this ground or a demand for independently documented hearing, because hearing between these contemporaries was possible and not implausible.
Muslim’s approach combines reliable non-mudallis transmission with genuinely possible contact and absence of contrary evidence. Bare overlap of calendar years is not a substitute for assessing location, dates, tadlīs and specific counterevidence. The stricter contact-establishment view recorded by Nawawī remains a distinct scholarly position.