ʿUluww (elevation in isnād) is of five kinds:1
Within the third type fall muwāfaqa, badal, musāwāt and muṣāfaḥa.
Muwāfaqa (agreement): reaching the teacher of one of the compilers.
Badal (substitution): reaching the teacher's teacher, or someone higher up.5
Musāwāt (parity): when the number of intermediaries between you and the Prophet ﷺ, or a Companion, or one of the imāms after them, equals the number between one of the compilers and the same person.
Muṣāfaḥa (handshake): like musāwāt, except that the count is taken with reference to the compiler's pupil, not the compiler himself.6
Such as the thunāʾī (chains of two narrators) of Imām Mālik, the thulāthī (chains of three) of Imām al-Bukhārī, and the subāʿī (chains of seven) of Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd. Ibn Ḥajar terms this category al-ʿuluww al-muṭlaq (absolute elevation) in his Sharḥ Nukhbat al-Fikar. ↩
The highest isnād attained by Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd is one in which there are six men between him and Imām Mālik or Ibn ʿUyayna, and five men between him and al-Bukhārī or Abū Dāwūd. Ibn Ḥajar terms this category al-ʿuluww al-nisbī (relative elevation) in his Sharḥ Nukhbat al-Fikar; he combines this third type with the second under the same heading. ↩
Thus our transmission from Shaykh Iẓhār al-Ḥasan al-Kāndhlawī, from Shaykh Muḥammad Zakariyyā, is higher than our transmission from Shaykh Muḥammad Yūnus, from Shaykh Muḥammad Zakariyyā (may Allāh have mercy on them all), since the death and hearing of Shaykh Iẓhār al-Ḥasan are both earlier. I say: Ibn Ḥajar conflated the second and third types, treating them as a single category which he called al-ʿuluww al-nisbī (relative elevation), and placing within it muwāfaqa, badal, musāwāt and muṣāfaḥa. The fuller breakdown given above is the better presentation. And Allāh knows best. ↩
An example: al-Bukhārī narrates a ḥadīth from al-Ḥumaydī, from Ibn ʿUyayna, from al-Zuhrī. If we transmit it through another route to al-Ḥumaydī, that is muwāfaqa; if we transmit it through Ibn ʿUyayna or al-Zuhrī directly, that is badal. ↩
An example: suppose al-Nasāʾī transmits a ḥadīth in which there are ten men between him and the Prophet ﷺ. If al-Ḥākim transmits it with ten intermediaries, this is musāwāt (parity) between him and al-Nasāʾī; if al-Ḥākim transmits it with eleven intermediaries, this is musāwāt with al-Nasāʾī's student, and is therefore muṣāfaḥa with al-Nasāʾī, as if al-Ḥākim had met him and shaken his hand. ↩
For example, every narrator says: "I heard so-and-so say: I heard so-and-so," or "so-and-so narrated to us, saying: so-and-so narrated to us." ↩
When a narrator's solitary transmission is suspected, others' parallel narrations are mutābaʿa or shāhid; the pursuit of these is al-iʿtibār.
Al-shādhdh is that which a single narrator has transmitted alone, raising doubt in the mind of the critic; this is also the definition of al-munkar. Statements of the early imāms show the two are one.
Al-mudraj is the mixing of what belongs to one speaker with what belongs to another without indication. It falls into mudraj al-matn (more common) and mudraj al-sanad.
When a body of narrators take a ḥadīth from a prominent imām, it is called mashhūr (literally, well-known, publicised).
