Trustworthy Transmission, the Report of a Fāsiq, and Responsible Narration

1. The chapter’s governing obligation

بَابُ وُجُوبِ الرِّوَايَةِ عَنِ الثِّقَاتِ وَتَرْكِ الْكَذَّابِينَ
Translation: The obligation to transmit from trustworthy narrators and to leave the liars.

“Obligation” concerns the responsibility of transmission: encountering a report is not sufficient grounds for propagating it. Attributing words to the Prophet ﷺ requires evaluation of the transmission and its transmitters.

This is a chapter heading printed in the edition. Imam Muslim’s continuous discourse begins with وَاعْلَمْ immediately afterward; the precise authorship of the printed heading itself is not established here.

2. Who bears this responsibility?

وَاعْلَمْ، وَفَّقَكَ اللَّهُ تَعَالَى، أَنَّ الْوَاجِبَ عَلَى كُلِّ أَحَدٍ عَرَفَ التَّمْيِيزَ بَيْنَ صَحِيحِ الرِّوَايَاتِ وَسَقِيمِهَا، وَثِقَاتِ النَّاقِلِينَ لَهَا مِنَ الْمُتَّهَمِينَ
Translation: Know, may Allah grant you success, that one who can distinguish sound from unsound reports and reliable transmitters from accused ones is obliged to…

“Is capable of distinguishing” identifies the informed transmitter addressed by the rule. “Unsound” denotes defective transmission in this context; it is not simply synonymous with deliberate fabrication.

3. Sound provenance and the narrator’s standing

أَنْ لَا يَرْوِيَ مِنْهَا إِلَّا مَا عَرَفَ صِحَّةَ مَخَارِجِهِ، وَالسِّتَارَةَ فِي نَاقِلِيهِ، وَأَنْ يَتَّقِيَ مِنْهَا مَا كَانَ مِنْهَا عَنْ أَهْلِ التُّهَمِ وَالْمُعَانِدِينَ مِنْ أَهْلِ الْبِدَعِ
Translation: He should report only what he knows to have sound provenance and appropriately upright transmitters, and guard against reports from accused persons and obstinate partisans of innovations.

“Sound provenance” concerns the report’s valid transmission route; “sitarah” indicates the narrators’ protected moral standing and probity, not simply that their faults are concealed. Grammatically, “and that he avoid” is coordinated with “that he should not narrate except”: responsible selection and avoidance form one duty.

4. Narration from an innovator: the scholarly distinctions

Important qualification: Narrators associated with innovation do not all receive one undifferentiated ruling. Al-Nawawī records agreement on rejecting reports from one whose innovation amounts to disbelief; for non-disbelieving innovation he reports blanket rejection, conditional general acceptance if the narrator does not deem lying permissible, and a distinction between advocates and non-advocates.

The widely preferred qualified position rejects narration from an active propagator of the innovation, while a non-advocate may be accepted subject to the other transmission requirements. Even among non-advocates, scholarly qualifications remain. The inquiry concerns integrity, truthfulness and advocacy, not simply a sectarian label.

5. The verification command in al-Ḥujurāt

وَالدَّلِيلُ عَلَى أَنَّ الَّذِي قُلْنَا مِنْ هَذَا هُوَ اللَّازِمُ دُونَ مَا خَالَفَهُ قَوْلُ اللَّهِ جَلَّ ذِكْرُهُ: ﴿يَا أَيُّهَا الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا إِنْ جَاءَكُمْ فَاسِقٌ بِنَبَإٍ فَتَبَيَّنُوا أَنْ تُصِيبُوا قَوْمًا بِجَهَالَةٍ فَتُصْبِحُوا عَلَى مَا فَعَلْتُمْ نَادِمِينَ﴾
Translation: The proof for this rule includes Allah’s command: believers must verify a report brought by a sinful person, lest they harm people in ignorance and later regret it.

Qur’an 49:6 commands verification (“fa-tabayyanū”) before acting on a report from a compromised source. Muslim applies this to responsible hadith transmission. The verse calls for scrutiny; it does not itself declare every suspicious report conclusively false.

6. The Qur’anic requirement of acceptable witnesses

وَقَالَ جَلَّ ثَنَاؤُهُ: ﴿مِمَّنْ تَرْضَوْنَ مِنَ الشُّهَدَاءِ﴾، وَقَالَ عَزَّ وَجَلَّ: ﴿وَأَشْهِدُوا ذَوَيْ عَدْلٍ مِنْكُمْ﴾
Translation: Allah also speaks of witnesses whom you approve and commands taking two just witnesses from among you.

The excerpts are from Qur’an 2:282 and 65:2. They establish integrity as relevant to legal testimony. Muslim argues that reliability also matters for accepting a report, without asserting that every legal rule governing testimony applies unchanged to hadith narration.

7. The first conclusion of the argument

فَدَلَّ بِمَا ذَكَرْنَا مِنْ هَذِهِ الْآيِ أَنَّ خَبَرَ الْفَاسِقِ سَاقِطٌ غَيْرُ مَقْبُولٍ، وَأَنَّ شَهَادَةَ غَيْرِ الْعَدْلِ مَرْدُودَةٌ
Translation: The verses show that an untrustworthy person’s report is not accepted as probative, and testimony from one lacking integrity is rejected.

“Not accepted” means that the report does not serve as reliable proof on its own; it is not a declaration that each word must be factually untrue. A serious reliability defect cannot be cured simply by the transmitter asserting that the report is authentic.

8. Report and legal testimony are not identical

وَالْخَبَرُ وَإِنْ فَارَقَ مَعْنَاهُ مَعْنَى الشَّهَادَةِ فِي بَعْضِ الْوُجُوهِ، فَقَدْ يَجْتَمِعَانِ فِي أَعْظَمِ مَعَانِيهِمَا، إِذْ كَانَ خَبَرُ الْفَاسِقِ غَيْرَ مَقْبُولٍ عِنْدَ أَهْلِ الْعِلْمِ، كَمَا أَنَّ شَهَادَتَهُ مَرْدُودَةٌ عِنْدَ جَمِيعِهِمْ
Translation: A report and testimony differ in some respects but share a fundamental concern: the report of a fāsiq lacks acceptance among scholars just as his testimony is rejected.

Al-Nawawī distinguishes reports from courtroom testimony in conditions such as number of persons and particular eligibility rules: one upright narrator may transmit a report, while testimony can require multiple witnesses or other qualifications. Muslim’s analogy concerns the common relevance of integrity and truthfulness, not identity of every legal condition.

9. The Sunnah’s warning about unacceptable reports

وَدَلَّتِ السُّنَّةُ عَلَى نَفْيِ رِوَايَةِ الْمُنْكَرِ مِنَ الْأَخْبَارِ، كَنَحْوِ دَلَالَةِ الْقُرْآنِ عَلَى نَفْيِ خَبَرِ الْفَاسِقِ
Translation: The Sunnah likewise forbids propagating objectionable reports, paralleling the Qur’anic rejection of unreliable news.

The Qur’anic rule establishes the need to verify a compromised source; Muslim now supplies a Prophetic warning about knowingly circulating a false attribution. These are complementary evidences, not interchangeable textual statements.

10. The Prophetic warning against transmitting a known falsehood

وَهُوَ الْأَثَرُ الْمَشْهُورُ عَنْ رَسُولِ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ: «مَنْ حَدَّثَ عَنِّي بِحَدِيثٍ يُرَى أَنَّهُ كَذِبٌ، فَهُوَ أَحَدُ الْكَاذِبِينَ»
Translation: This is the well-known report from the Messenger of Allah ﷺ: whoever transmits a report on my authority that he knows, or has strong grounds to believe, is false is one of the liars.

“Whoever transmits from me” includes a later relayer, not only the original fabricator. This rendering makes explicit the interpretive range of “yurā annahu kadhib”: knowledge or a well-grounded conviction of false attribution, not a passing doubt. Mere weakness or uncertainty does not automatically establish deliberate fabrication. The governing point is responsibility for a false Prophetic attribution.

11. First complete chain: Samurah ibn Jundab

حَدَّثَنَا أَبُو بَكْرِ بْنُ أَبِي شَيْبَةَ، حَدَّثَنَا وَكِيعٌ، عَنْ شُعْبَةَ، عَنِ الْحَكَمِ، عَنْ عَبْدِ الرَّحْمَنِ بْنِ أَبِي لَيْلَى، عَنْ سَمُرَةَ بْنِ جُنْدَبٍ
Translation: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah narrated to us; he said, “Wakīʿ narrated to us,” from Shuʿbah, from al-Ḥakam, from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā, from Samurah ibn Jundab.

The complete chain is Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah → Wakīʿ → Shuʿbah → al-Ḥakam → ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā → Samurah. The forms “ḥaddathanā” and “ʿan” signal different types of transmission wording; the chain’s full critical assessment does not follow from the particles alone.

The narrator ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā here is the eminent Successor, not his son Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā, the jurist also known as Ibn Abī Laylā, whom hadith critics judge weak in transmission.

12. Second complete chain: al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah

ح، وَحَدَّثَنَا أَبُو بَكْرِ بْنُ أَبِي شَيْبَةَ أَيْضًا، حَدَّثَنَا وَكِيعٌ، عَنْ شُعْبَةَ وَسُفْيَانَ، عَنْ حَبِيبٍ، عَنْ مَيْمُونِ بْنِ أَبِي شَبِيبٍ، عَنِ الْمُغِيرَةِ بْنِ شُعْبَةَ، قَالَا: قَالَ رَسُولُ اللَّهِ صَلَّى اللَّهُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ ذَلِكَ
Translation: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah also narrated through Wakīʿ, through Shuʿbah and Sufyān, from Ḥabīb, from Maymūn ibn Abī Shabīb, from al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah. Both Companions reported that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said the previously stated words.

The marker “ḥ” signals switching to another chain, not a narrator’s name. “They both said” refers to Samurah and al-Mughīrah, and “that” points back to the Prophetic wording quoted above. The second chain intentionally does not repeat the full matn; the two routes must not be collapsed into an invented combined chain.

13. Two routes and one matn: what can be inferred?

Route one: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah → Wakīʿ → Shuʿbah → al-Ḥakam → ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā → Samurah.
Route two: Abū Bakr ibn Abī Shaybah → Wakīʿ → Shuʿbah and Sufyān → Ḥabīb → Maymūn ibn Abī Shabīb → al-Mughīrah.

The first two transmitters overlap, but the remaining portions constitute distinct Companion routes. In route two, Wakīʿ reports the Ḥabīb transmission through Shuʿbah and Sufyān as parallel authorities, not as consecutive links. Comparison helps study corroboration and variation; the presence of two chains does not automatically prove every transmitter’s accuracy or every claimed encounter.

Al-Nawawī identifies two specific laṭāʾif al-isnād in these very chains:
(1) Geographical pattern: he classifies their transmitters as Kūfan, with the exception of Shuʿbah ibn al-Ḥajjāj, who is described as Wāsiṭī and subsequently Baṣran. This is an observation about transmitters’ regional associations, not an automatic authentication criterion.
(2) A Successor narrating from another Successor occurs in each chain: al-Ḥakam ibn ʿUtaybah → ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Laylā in the first, and Ḥabīb ibn Abī Thābit → Maymūn ibn Abī Shabīb in the second. Thus isnād analysis examines generational nesting, not simply the number of links before the Companion.

14. Single reports and their evidentiary function

Al-Nawawī also refers to the evidentiary force of a reliable solitary report. A single upright transmitter can in principle provide an authoritative report; multiplicity of witnesses is not an automatic condition for every hadith.

Integrity alone is not the complete technical assessment: precision, continuity and potential defects also matter. Legal witness-number rules must not simply be imported into the science of transmission.

15. When to withhold, verify, or transmit

Suppose a particular attribution has been established to be fabricated: it must not be propagated as an authentic saying of the Prophet. If a real uncertainty remains about a transmitter or continuity, investigation is required before declaring it sound; it is not automatically “fabricated.”

The outcomes differ: (1) an established false attribution is rejected, (2) an unresolved claim is withheld pending examination, and (3) a verified report is accepted according to the relevant conditions.

16. The reasoning completed

Qur’anic foundation: verify compromised reports; legal testimony requires integrity.
Critical distinction: reports and testimony share an integrity requirement, but differ in detailed rules such as number and eligibility.
Prophetic warning: knowingly relaying a false attribution as Prophetic can implicate the relayer in the lie.

Therefore moral integrity, transmission provenance and the soundness of attribution each require appropriate investigation. The next chapter develops the grave warning against lying about the Prophet ﷺ through further narrations.