Al-mutawātir according to the Ḥanafīs is as defined above. Al-mashhūr according to them is that which was a solitary report in the first generation and then became mutawātir from the second generation or the third.1
Khabar al-wāḥid according to them is that which remained a solitary report throughout the three generations, even if it became mutawātir thereafter.2
So according to the Ḥanafīs the categories are three, while according to the muḥaddithūn they are only two: al-mutawātir and khabar al-wāḥid.
Further, according to the Ḥanafīs al-mashhūr is a co-category of khabar al-wāḥid, while for the muḥaddithūn it is a sub-category of it.
And the definition of al-mashhūr and of khabar al-wāḥid according to the Ḥanafīs is not the same as their definitions according to the muḥaddithūn.
These, then, are three differences between the two technical conventions. And Allāh knows best.
By "the first generation" is meant the ṣaḥāba; by "the second", the tābiʿūn; and by "the third", their followers. Al-Bazdawī gave as examples of the mashhūr (in the Ḥanafī sense) the ḥadīth of stoning and the ḥadīth on consecutive fasting in the expiation of the oath. See: Uṣūl al-Bazdawī, 2/535. ↩
See: Imʿān al-Naẓar, p. 31; Radd al-Muḥtār ʿalā al-Durr al-Mukhtār, 1/446; al-Dirāsāt, pp. 117–120. ↩
Scholars differ on the precise definition of al-munqaṭiʿ; Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr makes it the broadest category, while for the mutaqaddimūn and the fuqahāʾ it is identical with al-mursal.
Ḥadīth, in the muḥaddithūn's classification, is of two categories: al-mutawātir and khabar al-wāḥid.
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.
Khabar al-wāḥid is any narration that does not meet the conditions of tawātur. It yields presumption (ẓann), and has three sub-categories by number of narrators.
