Four positions must remain distinct. Muslim allows an ordinary presumption for reliable non-mudallis contemporaries whose meeting was genuinely feasible and whose disconnection is unproven. The established-meeting position, attributed to al-Bukhārī and Ibn al-Madīnī and preferred by al-Nawawī, asks for affirmative evidence of contact. Al-Qābisī, al-Samʿānī, and al-Dānī add their separately defined conditions. The absolute refusal of every muʿanʿan report is a different minority opinion explicitly rejected by al-Nawawī.
Forms such as ʿan, anna, qāla and related expressions must be considered alongside evidence of contact, reporting convention, tadlīs and counter-evidence. The formula itself is not a guarantee of continuity or of authenticity.
In the next part Muslim challenges the added condition and offers chains in which an intermediary appears even between narrators who had demonstrable contact. This level establishes the methodological distinctions needed to assess that argument.