Al-mudabbaj (literally, embellished or paired): when each of two peers narrates from the other, this is al-mudabbaj.1 ʿAllāmah al-ʿIrāqī, following ʿAllāmah al-Dāraquṭnī, did not require the two narrators to be peers (qarīnān) for a ḥadīth to count as mudabbaj.2
Such as the narration of ʿĀʾishah and Abū Hurayra each from the other, the narration of Mālik and al-Awzāʿī each from the other, and the narration of Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal and ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī each from the other. ↩
Thus the narration of ʿAbd al-Razzāq from Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal, ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī and Yaḥyā ibn Maʿīn, who were his students, together with their narration from him in the reverse direction, is reckoned mudabbaj (on the looser definition). For ʿAllāmah Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ and others, however, it is only riwāyat al-akābir ʿan al-aṣāghir and is not mudabbaj. See: Maʿrifat ʿUlūm al-Ḥadīth, pp. 215 to 220; al-Taqyīd wa-l-Īḍāḥ, pp. 262 to 264. ↩
If the narrators of a ḥadīth agree in their wording of transmission, in any verbal feature, in an action or in some shared quality, this is al-musalsal (a chained or serial ḥadīth).
If two men are of the same age and have met the same teachers, they are qarīnān (peers); the narration of one of two peers from the other is riwāyat al-aqrān.
When a body of narrators take a ḥadīth from a prominent imām, it is called mashhūr (literally, well-known, publicised).
When narrators' names are identical in writing but differ in pronunciation, this is al-muʾtalif wa-l-mukhtalif.
