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.1
The muhmal (literally, neglected, overlooked) is clarified either by the narrator's transmitting only from one of the two, or by only one of the two actually being the teacher of the narrator who is transmitting from him.2 If it cannot be clarified: if both are thiqa, there is no harm; if one of them is not thiqa, there is.
I say: by "specificity" is meant either restriction or constant association. By the first, the muhmal is clarified with certainty; by the second, with predominant probability.
Muhmal is, in a sense, a sub-type of majhūl; but in the technical usage of the muḥaddithūn, the term muhmal is reserved for it. Literally: neglected, overlooked, left without specification. An example: when al-Bukhārī narrates from "Aḥmad" or "Muḥammad" without further identification, he has many teachers of those names. [tr.] ↩
That is, one of the two narrators bearing the same name does not narrate from the teacher in question, so he can be excluded. For instance: if there are two Yūnuses, and only one of them narrates from Shaykh Zakariyyā, we can identify the narrator as Shaykh Yūnus Jonpūrī rather than Shaykh Yūnus Pālanpūrī, since the latter does not transmit ḥadīth directly from Shaykh Zakariyyā. [tr.] ↩
When a narrator's solitary transmission is suspected, others' parallel narrations are mutābaʿa or shāhid; the pursuit of these is al-iʿtibār.
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.
When narrators share the same name and the same father's name (and possibly further up the line), but are different persons, this is al-muttafiq wa-l-muftariq.
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.
