What conditions did the hadith critics set for accepting a muanan chain, one transmitted with "from" rather than an explicit statement of hearing?
Among the supplied sources, the fullest statement of conditions comes from Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr in al-Tamhīd (edition of Bashshār). He says he found the hadith authorities agreed, without disagreement among them, on accepting a muʿanʿan chain when three conditions are met: the transmitters are upright (ʿadāla), they met one another in person (liqāʾ, 'sitting together and seeing one another'), and they are free of tadlīs.
That claim of agreement is his. The same edition's editor says in a footnote that the claim of consensus is not valid, because scholars disagreed with requiring that the meeting be established. The editor names Muslim, in the introduction to his Ṣaḥīḥ, and al-Ḥākim among them. In al-Istidhkār, Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr also states that a muʿanʿan chain is presumed connected until a break is shown. The other sources narrow the question to the 'from' of a known mudallis.
A modern study printed with al-Ṭabarānī's al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ accepts a particular transmitter's reports from Jābir only where he states his hearing, or where al-Layth b. Saʿd transmits from him. Its footnotes set out three positions on muʿanʿan reports from mudallis transmitters inside the two Ṣaḥīḥs, each attributed to named scholars: treat them like any other, presume hearing, or suspend judgement.
The editor of Musnad Abī Yaʿlā (al-Sināri) holds that a mudallis's 'from' is only an indicator of tadlīs, not proof of it. An academic monograph on Muslim (author not recorded in the collection) reports Muslim's view that earlier authorities checked hearing only for transmitters who practised tadlīs widely. It also reports the modern debate over who Muslim's opponent was, and it warns that detecting tadlīs does not necessarily mean requiring a meeting. The critics' own primary statements, including Muslim's introduction, are not among the supplied passages.
So this account rests on Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, on editors' and researchers' notes, and on modern secondary works.
Quotations and sources
The wording this answer relied on, as quoted from the works.
على قَبولِ الإسنادِ المُعَنْعَن، لا خلافَ بينَهم في ذلك إذا جمَع شُروطًا ثلاثة، وهي: عدالةُ المُحَدِّثين في أحوالِهم، ولقاءُ بعضِهم بعضًا مجُالَسةً ومشاهدَة، وأن يكونوا بُرآءَ من التَّدْليسدعوى الإجماع في هذه المسألة لا تصحُّ، فقد خالف علماء اشتراط ثبوت اللقاء، منهم: الإمام مسلم كما في مقدمة صحيحه ١/ ٢٢ - ٢٣، والحاكم في معرفة علوم الحديث (٣٤) ولم يقيده باللقاءوَأَنَّ السَّنَدَ الْمُعَنْعَنَ مَحْمُولٌ عَلَى الِاتِّصَالِ حَتَّى يُبَيَّنَ الِانْقِطَاعُوَقَدْ بَانَ فِي هَذَا الْحَدِيثِ اتِّصَالُهُ لِمُجَالَسَةِ بَعْضِ رواته بعضاوهذا لا يجوزُ إلّا في الإسنادِ المُعَنْعَنوهذا أخَفُّ ما يكونُ في الذين لَقِيَ بعضُهم بعضًا، وأخَذ بعضُهم عن بعض، وإذا وقَع ذلك فيمَن لم يَلْقَه فهو أقبَحُ وأسمَجُفالتدليس يختصُّ بمن روى عمّن عُرف لقاؤه إيّاه، فأمَّا إن عاصره ولم يعرف أنه لقيه، بل بين المعاصر وبين المحدَّث عنه واسطة، فهو المرسَل الخفيّفلا يُقبل من حديثه عن جابر إلا ما صرَّحَ فيه بسماعه منه، أو كان من رواية الليث بن سعد عنهأمَّا من لم يَصِح له سماعه منهم فتُردّ روايته عنهم للإرسال لا للتدليسمحمولٌ على ثبوت السَّمَاع من جهة أخرىفيحمل كلامهم هنا على ما كان منها في الاحتجاج فقط، أمَّا ما كان في المتابعات فيُحْتَمَل أن يكون حصل التسامح في تخريجها كغيرهاأنَّ في النَّفس من هذا الاستثناء غُصَّة، لأنها دعوى لا دليل عليهاوما فيه إلا تحسين الظن بهماأنَّ الراجح هو ما ذهب إليه أصحاب القول الثاني، بقبول عنعنة المُدَلِّس التي في "الصحيحين"رواية شعبة عن الأعمش، وأبي إسحاق، وقتادة، فهي محمولة على السَّمَاع ولو كانت بالعَنْعَنَةإذا صَحَّ عندي خَبَرٌ مِنْ رواية مُدَلِّس أنه بَيَّن السماع فيه، لا أُبالي أن أذكره من غير بَيَانِ السَّمَاع في خَبَرِه بعد صحته عندي من طريق آخرهذا إسناد ضعيف، لتدليس ابن إسحاقإذ ليس في عنعنة المدلس ما يدل على تدليسه أصلًا، إنما هذا قرينة وحسبLimits the answer states
- No primary statement from the early critics whose conditions are in question was supplied: not Muslim's introduction, and nothing from al-Bukhārī, Ibn al-Madīnī, al-Ḥākim, al-Khaṭīb or Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ. Their positions appear here only as reported by Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, by editors and researchers, or by modern monographs.
- Many works cited inside the supplied passages were not supplied and could not be checked. These include Ibn Ḥajar's al-Nukat and Hady al-Sārī, al-Dhahabī's al-Mīzān and al-Siyar, al-Nawawī's al-Taqrīb, al-ʿAlāʾī's Jāmiʿ al-Taḥṣīl, al-Sakhāwī's Fatḥ al-Mughīth, al-Suyūṭī's Tadrīb al-Rāwī, Ibn Ḥibbān's introduction, al-Būṣīrī's Itḥāf al-Khiyara, Juynboll, Abu-Alabbas and al-ʿAwnī.
- Several passages open or close mid-sentence, and their neighbouring pages were not supplied: al-Istidhkār p. 1/16, al-Tamhīd p. 1/216, the al-Muʿjam al-Awsaṭ study p. 1/366, the Musnad Abī Yaʿlā footnote, and monograph pp. 159 and 179.
- Edition data are largely missing for the Shamela works. For the academic works, no author is recorded and the titles are derived from filenames.
- No scholar has reviewed this evidence or this answer.
Kutubi’s research is written by Claude, an AI model made by Anthropic. AI can make mistakes: please check each quotation against the work it cites before relying on it.