When a narrator transmits a ḥadīth and his solitary transmission is suspected, and that suspicion arises in the mind of the critic, then if another transmits the very same ḥadīth, this is mutābaʿa. If the second narrator transmits it from the same teacher, it is al-mutābaʿa al-tāmma (complete corroboration).
If he transmits it from the teacher's teacher, or from someone higher up, this may also be called mutābaʿa, but it falls short of the first form in proportion to how far removed it is. This is called al-mutābaʿa al-qāṣira (the deficient corroboration), and it may also be designated al-shāhid (the witness).
If the very same ḥadīth is not transmitted through any of the routes mentioned above, but another ḥadīth with the same meaning is transmitted, this is al-shāhid; it is not called mutābaʿa.1
So al-mutābaʿa al-tāmma is called only mutābaʿa; al-shāhid is called only shāhid; and al-mutābaʿa al-qāṣira is sometimes called mutābaʿa and sometimes shāhid.2
The pursuit of mutābaʿa and shāhid is what is called al-iʿtibār.34
ʿAllāmah Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's heading makes iʿtibār a third thing beside the mutābaʿa and the shāhid, and Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar objects that it is rather the procedure by which those two are uncovered (al-Nukat ʿalā Kitāb Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, ed. Rabīʿ al-Madkhalī, al-Jāmiʿa al-Islāmiyya, Madīnah, 1404/1984, 2/681). He replaces Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's example with the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar that the month is twenty-nine days, worked through the complete mutābaʿa, the deficient mutābaʿa (which he calls nāqiṣa, not qāṣira), and the shāhid in wording and the shāhid in meaning (2/682 to 685). What a corroboration is worth he had set out earlier, among his notes on the ḥasan. A ḥadīth carried by a ḥasan isnād is either solitary or has a mutābiʿ, and the mutābiʿ is either below it, its equal or above it: "if it is below it, it does not raise it above its rank" «فإن كان دونه فإنه لا يرقيه عن درجته», though it may still yield "a strength by which it is preferred, were another ḥasan with a solitary isnād to oppose it", while "if it is its equal or above it, either of the two raises it to the rank of soundness" «وإن كان مثله أو فوقه فكل منهما يرقيه إلى درجة الصحة» (1/420 to 421). He works this through the ḥadīth of ʿUthmān on running water through the beard, no route of which reaches the ṣaḥīḥ by itself, "and by the sum of that they judged the ḥadīth itself sound" (1/424). On which weaknesses admit of mending at all, see 1/409. [tr.] ↩
This is the substance of what al-Biqāʿī, al-Sakhāwī and al-Zayn Zakariyyā al-Anṣārī understood from ʿAllāmah Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's words in his Muqaddima (p. 65), as set out in al-Nukat al-Wafiyya, 1/479; Sharḥ al-Taqrīb by al-Sakhāwī, p. 145; and Fatḥ al-Bāqī, 1/245 to 246. The same is suggested by al-ʿIrāqī's words in al-Tabṣira, 1/204, and by al-Zarkashī's notes on Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, p. 207. Imām al-Nawawī, however, understood from Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ that mutābaʿa, whether tāmma or qāṣira, is termed shāhid; this too is possible, though the former is the more apt reading. Know further that ʿAllāmah Ibn Kathīr and Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar fell here into an error in understanding Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's words, and many of the later scholars followed them in it: they supposed that what Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ meant by his words, "mutābaʿa is that the very same ḥadīth be narrated," is that it be from that same Companion, and that what he meant by his words, "if another ḥadīth is narrated with the same meaning, that is the shāhid," is that it be from the ḥadīth of another Companion. This agrees neither with the run of Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's words nor with his own example. So too whoever supposed that Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's words "the very same" mean "in its very wording" is likewise incorrect, since a ḥadīth's being the very same does not entail its being in the same wording. An example of the complete mutābaʿa: that which al-Shāfiʿī narrated in al-Umm (3/231, no. 907) from Mālik, from ʿAbd Allāh ibn Dīnār, from Ibn ʿUmar (raḍ. ʿanhumā), that the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: "The month is twenty-nine days; do not fast until you see the crescent, and do not break the fast until you see it; and if it is obscured from you, complete the count as thirty." Some supposed that Imām al-Shāfiʿī was alone in this wording from Mālik and counted it among his gharāʾib, since Imām Mālik's companions narrated it from him with this isnād with the wording "and if it is obscured from you, estimate it." But we have found a corroborator for al-Shāfiʿī, namely ʿAbd Allāh ibn Maslama al-Qaʿnabī: al-Bukhārī brought it out (1/256, no. 1907) from him, from Mālik, with al-Shāfiʿī's wording. This is a complete mutābaʿa. An example of the deficient mutābaʿa and of the shāhid: the ḥadīth of Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna, from ʿAmr ibn Dīnār, from ʿAṭāʾ ibn Abī Rabāḥ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that the Prophet ﷺ said: "Had they taken its hide and tanned it, they would have profited by it." Ibn Jurayj narrated it from ʿAmr, from ʿAṭāʾ, without mentioning the tanning in it; so ʿAllāmah al-Bayhaqī mentioned for the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUyayna a corroborator and a witness: al-Bayhaqī narrated (1/16) with his isnād from Usāma ibn Zayd, from ʿAṭāʾ, from Ibn ʿAbbās, that the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: "Why did you not strip off its skin, and tan it, and profit by it?" This is a deficient mutābaʿa, since Usāma did not narrate it from Ibn ʿUyayna's teacher but from his teacher's teacher. As for the shāhid, it is the ḥadīth of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Waʿla, from Ibn ʿAbbās, who said: the Messenger of Allāh ﷺ said: "Any hide that is tanned has become pure." It is clear, then, from this very example by which Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ illustrated the mutābiʿ and the shāhid, that it is not required of the shāhid that it be from the ḥadīth of another Companion, since both are from the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿAbbās; and likewise it is not required of the mutābiʿ that it be in the same wording, for consider the difference in wording between the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUyayna and that of Ibn Zayd. The two positions in explaining Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's words are therefore mistaken. And Allāh knows best. See: Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, pp. 65 to 66; al-Bāʿith al-Ḥathīth, 1/184; Nukat Ibn Ḥajar, p. 279; Sharḥ al-Nukhba, pp. 41 to 42. ↩
Iʿtibār: literally, reflection and examination. Technically, the tracing of the routes of a ḥadīth in order to identify mutābaʿāt and shawāhid. [tr.] ↩
Note that iʿtibār is needed only when doubt has arisen in the mind of the critic, as is understood from the words of Ibn Ḥibbān, Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, al-Nawawī, al-ʿIrāqī, al-Sakhāwī, al-Suyūṭī and others, and as is understood from al-Ḥākim's and al-Khalīlī's definition of al-shādhdh. Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal was once asked: "Who corroborates ʿAffān on such-and-such?" He replied: "Does ʿAffān need anyone to corroborate him?" See: Ṣaḥīḥ Ibn Ḥibbān, 1/155; Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, p. 65; Tadrīb al-Rāwī, 1/243; al-Tabṣira, 1/205; Sharḥ al-Taqrīb by al-Sakhāwī, p. 144; Fatḥ al-Mughīth, 2/257. This was alluded to at the beginning of the discussion in the main text. And Allāh knows best. ↩
If the narrator is not named (a shaykh, a man, a thiqah), this is al-mubham; he may be identified through another route, and the Mubhamāt literature is devoted to this.
A muʿallal ḥadīth contains a hidden defect (ʿilla) damaging to its soundness, detected by warning signs in sanad and matn that arise to one familiar with the art.
If a narrator transmits from one of two persons who share the same name, without giving anything to distinguish him from the other, this is al-muhmal.
Al-shādhdh is what a single narrator transmits alone, raising doubt in the mind of the critic; this is also al-munkar, and the muḥaddithūn treat the two as one.
