Al-qarīnān: if two men are of the same age and have met the same teachers, they are qarīnān (peers).
Riwāyat al-aqrān: the narration of one of two peers from the other is riwāyat al-aqrān.1
Such as the narration of ʿĀʾisha 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. ↩
When each of two peers narrates from the other, this is al-mudabbaj (literally, embellished or paired); al-ʿIrāqī, following al-Dāraquṭnī, did not require the two narrators to be peers.
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.
When the narrator is older, of an earlier generation, of greater standing than the one narrated from, or greater in both respects, this is riwāyat al-akābir ʿan al-aṣāghir.
When the routes of a ḥasan li-dhātihi narration multiply, the ḥadīth is upgraded to al-ṣaḥīḥ li-ghayrihi (the sound by virtue of something other than itself).
