When the narrators' names are the same but their fathers' names differ, or vice versa, this is al-mutashābih;1 from it and what precedes it various sub-types are formed.23
An example of the first: Muḥammad ibn ʿAqīl, with a fatḥah on the ʿayn, and Muḥammad ibn ʿUqayl, with a ḍammah on it. An example of the second: Shurayḥ ibn al-Nuʿmān and Surayj ibn al-Nuʿmān. ↩
Sharḥ Nukhbat al-Fikr, pp. 102 to 105. ↩
This category divides into several sub-types, including: (i) agreement broken only by the addition or omission of a single letter (ʿAbd Allāh ibn Zayd / ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yazīd); (ii) agreement broken by a one- or two-letter substitution (ʿAbd Allāh ibn Yaḥyā / ʿAbd Allāh ibn Nujayy); (iii) al-mutashābih al-maqlūb by transposition of the two names (al-Aswad ibn Yazīd / Yazīd ibn al-Aswad); and (iv) maqlūb by transposition of letters within a single name (Ayyūb ibn Sayyār / Ayyūb ibn Yasār). See Nuzhat al-Naẓar (ed. ʿItr), pp. 131 to 133. [tr.] ↩
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.
When narrators' names are identical in writing but differ in pronunciation, this is al-muʾtalif wa-l-mukhtalif.
Ḥadīth, in the muḥaddithūn's classification, is of two categories: al-mutawātir and khabar al-wāḥid.
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).
