LessonsThe Meeting Condition in Muʿanʿan Hadith: Muslim’s Rejoinder and Route ComparisonQuiz

فَإِنْ قَالَ: قُلْتُهُ لِأَنِّي وَجَدْتُ رُوَاةَ الْأَخْبَارِ قَدِيمًا وَحَدِيثًا يَرْوِي أَحَدُهُمْ عَنِ الْآخَرِ الْحَدِيثَ وَلَمَّا يُعَايِنْهُ وَلَا سَمِعَ مِنْهُ شَيْئًا قَطُّ، فَلَمَّا رَأَيْتُهُمُ اسْتَجَازُوا رِوَايَةَ الْحَدِيثِ بَيْنَهُمْ هَكَذَا عَلَى الْإِرْسَالِ مِنْ غَيْرِ سَمَاعٍ، وَالْمُرْسَلُ مِنَ الرِّوَايَاتِ فِي أَصْلِ قَوْلِنَا وَقَوْلِ أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ بِالْأَخْبَارِ لَيْسَ بِحُجَّةٍ،
Translation: The opponent may say: Narrators ancient and recent have transmitted from people they neither encountered nor heard from; they thus transmitted with irsāl and no hearing. In the opponent’s basic stated rule, and in the practice attributed to hadith specialists, mursal reports are not evidence.

This is **Muslim reporting his opponent’s reasoning**, not an assertion of unanimous juristic agreement. Irsāl here broadly means a link is omitted despite no hearing. The narrower technical mursal of a Tābiʿī is a Successor’s direct attribution to the Prophet; the two usages must not be collapsed.

As al-Nawawī explains, the familiar hadith-critic view, held by al-Shāfiʿī and other jurists, does not treat the mursal report **on its own** as conclusive evidence because the unnamed intermediary’s status is unknown. In contrast, Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, Aḥmad and many jurists permitted argument from mursal reports under their respective doctrinal conditions; this is **not blanket authentication of every mursal report**. That juristic dispute differs from the opponent’s specific claim that possible irsāl, absent independently established meeting, disqualifies a muʿanʿan chain.

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Opponent’s Evidence: Occurrence of Omitted Links

The Meeting Condition in Muʿanʿan Hadith: Muslim’s Rejoinder and Route Comparison

فَإِنْ قَالَ: قُلْتُهُ لِأَنِّي وَجَدْتُ رُوَاةَ الْأَخْبَارِ قَدِيمًا وَحَدِيثًا يَرْوِي أَحَدُهُمْ عَنِ الْآخَرِ الْحَدِيثَ وَلَمَّا يُعَايِنْهُ وَلَا سَمِعَ مِنْهُ شَيْئًا قَطُّ، فَلَمَّا رَأَيْتُهُمُ اسْتَجَازُوا رِوَايَةَ الْحَدِيثِ بَيْنَهُمْ هَكَذَا عَلَى الْإِرْسَالِ مِنْ غَيْرِ سَمَاعٍ، وَالْمُرْسَلُ مِنَ الرِّوَايَاتِ فِي أَصْلِ قَوْلِنَا وَقَوْلِ أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ بِالْأَخْبَارِ لَيْسَ بِحُجَّةٍ،
Translation: The opponent may say: Narrators ancient and recent have transmitted from people they neither encountered nor heard from; they thus transmitted with irsāl and no hearing. In the opponent’s basic stated rule, and in the practice attributed to hadith specialists, mursal reports are not evidence.

This is **Muslim reporting his opponent’s reasoning**, not an assertion of unanimous juristic agreement. Irsāl here broadly means a link is omitted despite no hearing. The narrower technical mursal of a Tābiʿī is a Successor’s direct attribution to the Prophet; the two usages must not be collapsed.

As al-Nawawī explains, the familiar hadith-critic view, held by al-Shāfiʿī and other jurists, does not treat the mursal report **on its own** as conclusive evidence because the unnamed intermediary’s status is unknown. In contrast, Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, Aḥmad and many jurists permitted argument from mursal reports under their respective doctrinal conditions; this is **not blanket authentication of every mursal report**. That juristic dispute differs from the opponent’s specific claim that possible irsāl, absent independently established meeting, disqualifies a muʿanʿan chain.