A muʿanʿan chain reports transmission with phrases like “ʿan fulān.” Unlike “samiʿtu,” the preposition does not explicitly assert direct hearing. A decision about continuity requires attention to narrator reliability, possible tadlīs, chronology, and evidence of hearing.
“ʿAn fulān”
“From so-and-so.”
If the two transmitters did not live in overlapping periods, this wording cannot manufacture direct contact; discontinuity requires investigation. If they were contemporaries, that is important preliminary evidence but does not by itself amount to explicit proof of a meeting.
A mudallis narrator is not assessed by the identical presumption applied to an ordinary non-mudallis narrator.