Ṣaḥīḥ li-Dhātihi

Footnotes

1. The five conditions revolve around two qualities in the narrator, ʿadāla and ḍabṭ. Al-Sharīf Ḥātim al-ʿAwnī sets out the reasoning in his Sharḥ al-Mūqiẓa (pp. 10 to 13). A report is rejected only when it is held to be at variance with what in fact occurred, and it can be at variance with the fact for two reasons only: the narrator reported otherwise than the fact deliberately, which is kadhib, or without intending to, which is khaṭaʾ. ʿAdāla is stipulated against the first, since a man who magnifies the sanctities of the religion will not deliberately lie about the Prophet ﷺ; ḍabṭ is stipulated against the second, though it yields a strong probability rather than a guarantee. A connected chain is stipulated against both at once, because nothing is known of a dropped narrator's uprightness or precision. Al-ʿAwnī concludes: "So rejection in every case turns upon these two defects" «فالردُّ في الكل دائرٌ على هاتين الآفتين» (p. 13). Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Lāḥim reaches the same point from the other direction in his al-Jarḥ wa al-Taʿdīl (pp. 30 to 32): the remaining three conditions revert to these two, since the presence of shudhūdh or ʿilla means that retention has failed. [tr.] ↩

2. Nukhbat al-Fikr, p. 24. This is the ḥadīth which is judged ṣaḥīḥ without disagreement among the people of ḥadīth. They may, however, differ over the authenticity of certain ḥadīth, either because they differ as to the presence of these attributes in them, or because they differ as to whether some of these attributes are required, as in the case of the mursal. Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, pp. 16 to 17, as will follow in the discussions to come. It is known, then, that this is the definition of the ṣaḥīḥ that is agreed upon, not of the ṣaḥīḥ in absolute terms; and that it is the definition of the ṣaḥīḥ according to the muḥaddithūn, not according to others. ↩