It is not permissible to summarise a ḥadīth or to narrate it by meaning, except for someone learned in what the words denote and in what would distort the sense; this is the sound view in both questions. According to the Ḥanafīs: if the ḥadīth is mushtarak, mushkil, mujmal, mutashābih,1 or among the jawāmiʿ al-kalim,2 it is not permissible to narrate it by meaning.
If, however, the ḥadīth is muḥkam (clear and not subject to abrogation), someone learned in Arabic may narrate it by meaning. As for the ẓāhir (apparent in meaning) which can bear another sense, such as the general (ʿāmm) bearing the particular (khāṣṣ), or the literal (ḥaqīqa) bearing the figurative (majāz),3 this may be narrated by meaning only by a mujtahid.4
Mushtarak is wording that bears more than one meaning, mushkil is wording whose obscurity is removed only by taʾwīl, mujmal is wording clarified by the Sharīʿa itself, and mutashābih is wording whose precise meaning is left ambiguous by the Sharīʿa itself. [tr.] ↩
Jawāmiʿ al-kalim: brief yet meaningful speech, a special quality of the Prophet's ﷺ. [tr.] ↩
An example is the ḥadīth, "There is no wuḍūʾ for one who has not mentioned the name of Allāh." The ḥaqīqī sense is that one who omits bismillāh is not in a state of wuḍūʾ at all; the majāzī sense is that he has not perfected his wuḍūʾ and has fallen short of its full reward. [tr.] ↩
Mujtahid: a Muslim jurist of the highest rank, qualified to derive rulings from the primary sources. [tr.] ↩
When the addition of a thiqa narrator is accepted: positions of al-Tirmidhī, Ibn Ḥibbān, Muslim, al-Ḥākim and the Ḥanafīs, with the majlis distinction.
The science of jarḥ and taʿdīl, the two grounds of evaluation, when criticism overrides praise, and who needs tazkiya.
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.
The threefold division of ḥadīth study: ʿilm riwāyat al-ḥadīth, ʿilm dirāyat al-ḥadīth, and ʿilm uṣūl al-ḥadīth (muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth), as set out in the opening of al-Mulakhkhaṣ.
