The textbook records differing proposed minimum numbers for tawātur—including four, ten, and forty—while noting that the circumstances and reliability structure of the reports matter.
Therefore, no single headcount in the passage should be treated as an automatic universal test. The central criterion is whether deliberate collusion on the report is rationally excluded.
Independent, convergent observations from different reporting paths differ from many people forwarding the same original claim, even if the total number of voices appears similar.