Al-Bayqūniyyah: The Poem of Ḥadīth Terminology

I begin with praise, and with prayers and salutations upon Muḥammad ﷺ, the noblest prophet ever sent.

What follows is a number of the divisions of ḥadīth, each one given together with its definition.

The first of them is ṣaḥīḥ (sound): one whose chain (isnād) is connected, and which is neither anomalous nor afflicted by a hidden defect.

It is narrated by one who is upright (ʿadl) and precise (ḍābiṭ), from his like, relied upon both in his retention and in his transmission.

The ḥasan (fair) is the report whose routes are known, though its narrators are not as celebrated as those of the ṣaḥīḥ.

All that falls below the rank of ḥasan is ḍaʿīf (weak), and its subdivisions are many.

What is attributed to the Prophet ﷺ is marfūʿ (raised); what is attributed to a Successor is maqṭūʿ (severed).

The musnad (supported) is that whose chain is connected from its narrator all the way back to the Chosen One ﷺ, with no gap.

And whatever is connected by the hearing (samāʿ) of every narrator, its chain reaching the Chosen One ﷺ, is the muttaṣil (connected).

Call musalsal (linked) the report that comes carrying a recurring description, as in the saying, "By Allāh, the young man informed me…"

Likewise, "He related it to me while standing," or, "After he related it to me, he smiled."

ʿAzīz (strengthened) is what is narrated by two or three; mashhūr (well-known) is what is narrated by more than three.

Muʿanʿan is like "from Saʿīd from Karam"; mubham (obscure) is the report containing a narrator who is not named.

Every report whose men are few is ʿālī (elevated); its opposite is the one called nāzil (descended).

And what you attribute to the Companions, of speech or action, is reckoned mawqūf (suspended).

Mursal (sent) is that from which the Companion has fallen out; and call gharīb (strange) what only a single narrator has related.

Every report whose chain is in no state connected is munqaṭiʿ (severed) in its links.

Muʿḍal (problematic) is that from which two have fallen out; and that which comes mudallas (concealed) is of two kinds.

The first is the dropping of the teacher, narrating from one above him with ʿan ("from") and an ("that").

The second does not drop him, but rather describes him by attributes through which he is not recognised.

What a trustworthy narrator transmits in contradiction to the majority is the shādhdh (anomalous); and the maqlūb (inverted) is of two kinds.

The substitution of one narrator for another is one kind; the flipping of a chain onto another matn is the other.

Fard (singular) is the report you have restricted to a trustworthy narrator, or to a group, or confined to a single line of transmission.

What carries a defect (ʿillah), subtle or hidden, is known among them as muʿallal (defective).

That which contains variance in chain or matn is muḍṭarib (confounded) in the eyes of the masters of the discipline.

The mudraj (interpolated) reports are those which contain words slipped in from some of the narrators' own speech.

What each peer narrates on the authority of his fellow is mudabbaj (adorned); know it well, and take pride in knowing it.

What agrees in wording and in script is muttafiq (congruous); its opposite, in what we have mentioned, is muftariq (incongruous).

Muʾtalif agrees only in script; its opposite is mukhtalif (discordant), so beware of error.

The munkar (denounced) is the report uniquely transmitted by a narrator whose appraisal does not bear up under such a solitary transmission.

Matrūk (abandoned) is what a single narrator transmits alone, and on whose weakness they have agreed; it is therefore as good as rejected.

A lie, fabricated and contrived about the Prophet ﷺ, that is the mawḍūʿ (forged).

They have come like a sheltered pearl; I have named them the Manẓūmah of al-Bayqūnī.

Four beyond thirty have its categories come; they are complete, and with goodness sealed.