Sons narrating from fathers is a familiar and frequent family pattern, while fathers narrating from sons reverses that direction and is comparatively less common. The shared family connection does not make the two classifications identical.
Case 1: “Muḥammad ʿan abīhi”: Muḥammad reports from his father. The son is the current narrator and the father is his source.
Case 2: “The father ʿan his son Muḥammad”: the father receives from the son, an unusual direction included within senior-to-junior narration.
Always read “ʿan” with attention to who is narrating and from whom. The same two family members can appear in very different transmission relationships.