An innovator whose innovation plainly amounts to disbelief1 is a disbeliever by agreement.
An innovator whose innovation entails disbelief but who is mistaken at root through misinterpretation2 is the subject of disagreement.3 This is the position of Shams al-Dīn al-Aṣfahānī, and it is alluded to by Ibn Daqīq al-ʿĪd and Ibn Ḥajar.
After this: the narration of an innovator is unconditionally rejected in the view of Mālik.4
In the view of Abū Ḥanīfa, Abū Yūsuf and al-Shāfiʿī: it is not accepted if the innovator deems lying lawful.
In the view of Aḥmad and most of the muḥaddithūn: it is not accepted if he is a dāʿiya (caller to his innovation).
In the view of Ibn Ḥajar: it is not accepted if he is a dāʿiya, or if, even without being a dāʿiya, he transmits what reinforces his own innovation.5
Such as claiming that Allāh, may He be exalted, has a son, we seek refuge with Allāh from such a claim, or denying the existence of paradise and hell. [tr.] ↩
Such as taking the verses that describe Allāh's hand to mean a literal physical hand, based on a mistaken interpretation of the Qurʾān or ḥadīth. [tr.] ↩
Abū al-Ḥusayn al-Baṣrī, Imām al-Rāzī, al-Qāḍī al-Bayḍāwī, al-Tāj al-Subkī and others accepted (such a man's narration), while al-Qāḍī Abū Bakr and al-Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Jabbār rejected it. See: al-Kifāya, p. 160; al-Maḥṣūl, 4/396; Kashf al-Asrār, 3/39; al-Ibhāj, 2/244; Nihāyat al-Sūl, p. 167. ↩
Note, however, that some ḥadīths from mubtadiʿīn are nevertheless found in the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imām Mālik. [tr.] ↩
Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar Ibn al-Ḥājib, 1/692; al-Iqtirāḥ, pp. 291–293; Sharḥ al-Nukhba, pp. 71–72; al-Kifāya, p. 160 and pp. 168–170. ↩
Positions on what to do when the teacher (aṣl) denies a narration that the student (farʿ) attributes to him.
Al-mursal in its broad sense was not rejected by anyone until Imām al-Shāfiʿī; the Ḥanafīs differ over the mursal of the first three generations.
Al-mawḍūʿ is that which has been concocted and fabricated. It is known by four indications, and may not be narrated to one who knows its condition without disclosure.
Among the muḥaddithūn, al-majhūl is a narrator whose condition is not known and who is not known for his pursuit of knowledge; he splits into majhūl al-ḥāl (al-mastūr) and majhūl al-ʿayn.
