01
Continuity of the chain
Ittisal al-sanad. Did each student actually meet the teacher? A missing handshake — mursal, munqati, mudal — wounds the report.
عِلْمُ مُصْطَلَحِ الْحَدِيث
Ilm al-hadith
How a report is weighed
Before a sentence is called a hadith, scholars walk it through a method older than most courts: they test the chain, the men in it, the wording, and the hidden faults. This is that method — the one that put Bukhari and Muslim in your hands.
الإِسْنَادُ مِنَ الدِّينِ، وَلَوْلَا الإِسْنَادُ لَقَالَ مَنْ شَاءَ مَا شَاءَ
The isnad is part of the religion. Were it not for the isnad, anyone would say whatever he wished.
Abd Allah ibn al-Mubarak
The tests
Six questions every report must survive
02
Integrity and precision
Adalah and dabt. Was the narrator upright, and was his memory or book precise? Praise and blame of men is al-jarh wa al-tadil.
03
The science of men
Ilm al-rijal. Birth, death, teachers, students, travels. A biographical ledger so a forger cannot hide inside a famous name.
04
Soundness of the text
Salamat al-matn. The wording is weighed against the Qur’an, stronger reports, and the known speech of the Prophet ﷺ. A perfect chain cannot rescue a corrupted sentence.
05
Freedom from anomaly
Adam al-shudhudh. If a trustworthy man contradicts those more trustworthy, his wording is shadhdh — and is set aside.
06
Freedom from hidden defect
Adam al-illah. The hardest test. A report may look sound and still carry a subtle mix-up of names, sittings, or tadlis only a specialist sees.
The houses
The same defect, six doors
The tests are one science. The books are not one house. Choose a wound in the report — then see who lets it through, who names it, and who shuts the door.
Two trustworthy men lived at the same time, but no one recorded that they met. Bukhari’s extra door and Muslim’s door split here.
al-Bukhari — proof of meeting
ClosesClosed. Living at the same time is not enough — he wanted proof they sat.
Read the hadithMuslim — contemporaneity
AcceptsOpen, if tadlis is not feared. Contemporaneity is his extra generosity.
Read the hadithal-Tirmidhi — he names the grade
Names itOften kept, and he will tell you if the road is gharib.
Read the hadithAbu Dawud — law first
IncludesUsually included for fiqh if the men themselves are sound.
Read the hadithal-Nasai — severity with men
CautiousHe is severe with men and with gaps. Many such files he simply leaves.
Read the hadithIbn Majah — a wider net
IncludesThe wider net often copies it. Later critics still weigh the missing sitting.
Read the hadith
Try the method on a real report
Itibar
Compare two roads of one report
A single isnad is a witness. The critic lays a second road beside it — same companion (mutabi) or another companion with the same meaning (shahid). Shared names are the trunk. Names that appear on only one side are the test.
Compare two roads of one reportإِنَّمَا الْأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ
Mutabi — same Companion, another student
Bukhari opens the Sahih with this sitting.
رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ
عُمَرُ بْنُ الْخَطَّاب
Umar ibn al-Khattab
عَلْقَمَةُ بْنُ وَقَّاصٍ اللَّيْثِي
Alqamah ibn Waqqas al-Laythi
مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ التَّيْمِي
Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Taymi
يَحْيَى بْنُ سَعِيدٍ الْأَنْصَارِي
Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Ansari
سُفْيَانُ بْنُ عُيَيْنَة
Sufyan ibn Uyaynahthis road only
عَبْدُ اللَّهِ بْنُ الزُّبَيْرِ الْحُمَيْدِي
Abdullah ibn al-Zubayr al-Humaydithis road only
مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِسْمَاعِيلَ الْبُخَارِي
Muhammad ibn Isma'il al-Bukharithis road only
Ibn Majah keeps the same trunk in Zuhd (4227).
رَسُولُ اللَّهِ ﷺ
The Messenger of Allah ﷺ
عُمَرُ بْنُ الْخَطَّاب
Umar ibn al-Khattab
عَلْقَمَةُ بْنُ وَقَّاصٍ اللَّيْثِي
Alqamah ibn Waqqas al-Laythi
مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِبْرَاهِيمَ التَّيْمِي
Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Taymi
يَحْيَى بْنُ سَعِيدٍ الْأَنْصَارِي
Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Ansari
يَزِيدُ بْنُ هَارُون
Yazid ibn Harunthis road only
أَبُو بَكْرِ بْنُ أَبِي شَيْبَة
Abu Bakr ibn Abi Shaybahthis road only
مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَزِيدَ ابْنُ مَاجَه
Muhammad ibn Yazid ibn Majahthis road only
Names on both roads5
Bukhari and Ibn Majah share the Madinan trunk: Yahya from al-Taymi from Alqamah from Umar. The split is late — Sufyan and al-Humaydi versus Yazid and Ibn Abi Shaybah. That is a mutabi. The wording is not lonely. Ibn Majah’s wider net here agrees with the soundest book.
Sahih Muslim
How Muslim grades — and why the numbers disagree
Muslim does not stamp Sahih on each report. The book is the grade. What looks like many hadiths is often one wording on several roads — and each edition counts those roads differently.
Open the variantsمُسْلِمُ بْنُ الْحَجَّاجِ النَّيْسَابُورِي
206–261 AH
Muslim does not stamp Sahih on each report. The book is the grade. What looks like many hadiths is often one wording on several roads — and each edition counts those roads differently.
International / sequential
1–7563 here. Every isnad is a number — including “the same hadith through another chain.”
Arabic / Abdul-Baqi
About 3,033 matns. Variant roads are dotted: 8.01, 8.02… The number people usually mean by “Muslim 8.”
In-book
Book and hadith inside the kitab: Faith 1:1 is Jibril’s first road, not sequential 1.
Two doors, one grade-word
Bukhari and Muslim both kept only sahih. They do not use the same key for the lock.
Bukhari — proof of meeting
He wanted evidence that A had sat with B, not only that they lived at the same time. That extra door is liqa.
Muslim — contemporaneity
If two thiqah men shared an era and tadlis is not feared, Muslim accepts the link (muasarah). He then lays every other road beside it.
The introduction is method
Sequential 1–92 sit in book 0 — the Muqaddimah. They teach why the isnad is religion. They are not the first hadiths of Kitab al-Iman.
Later stamps
Al-Albani, Shaib al-Arnaut and others grade the Sunan by name. On Muslim the API is empty because the compiler already closed the file.
Who is allowed to grade
The compiler
Bukhari and Muslim grade by inclusion. A report in the Sahih already passed their door. A blank grade is not a missing test.
The teacher-collector
Tirmidhi names sahih, hasan, gharib on the page. Abu Dawud often flags a wound, or is silent on purpose.
The later critic
Albani, Arnaut, Ahmad Shakir, Muhammad Fuad Abd al-Baqi, Zubair Ali Zai. They re-walk old files. They can disagree — that disagreement is the method working.
The reader
A grade is about attribution to him ﷺ, not about whether the sentence is wise. For fiqh, ask a qualified scholar.
The numbering trap · Ar. 8
Hadith of Jibril — Arabic 8
Five roads of one matn. Abdul-Baqi 8.01–8.05, sequential 93–97, in-book Faith 1:1–1:5. Sequential 8 is still in the Muqaddimah — empty of this wording.
Opening the book…
Roads of this wording
Muslim gathered the tree. Each row is one isnad, not a new sentence.
Open this roadal-Tirmidhi
He names the grade on the page
The Jami teaches while it collects. Hasan sahih is his famous phrase — not a fifth rank above sahih, and not a shrug. Later critics still re-walk the same file.
Open Tirmidhi’s gradesمُحَمَّدُ بْنُ عِيسَى التِّرْمِذِي
209–279 AH
209–279 AH. He heard the Six’s generation, wrote a Jami that cites the fuqaha, and told you what he thought of each chain.
His own words
Sahih
The chain held for him. He may add “and this is the practice of the people of knowledge.”
Hasan
Usable, with a lighter man. This is the rank he made famous — a step that is not daif and not the peak.
Gharib
Only one road. Not a wound by itself. A thiqah gharib can still be sahih; a lonely weak road is not.
Hasan sahih
The debated stamp. Often: one hasan road plus a sahih road; or hasan rising toward sahih; or two critics split. He refused to flatten it.
Hasan sahih gharib
Sound enough, and still only one road. The Jami is teaching the tree, not hiding it.
Later stamps
Shakir, Albani, Bashhar Awwad, Zubair Ali Zai re-grade the same reports. Disagreement on Tirmidhi 3 and 4 is the method working.
Tirmidhi 1
Purification — Tirmidhi 1
Ibn Umar: prayer is not accepted without taharah. Shakir and Albani: sahih. Zubair: in Bukhari and Muslim. The book’s first door is a report the Shaykhayn already kept.
Opening the book…
Open Tirmidhi’s gradesal-Bukhari
One report, more than one number
Bukhari repeats a wording across chapters so the fiqh of each kitab has its witness. Sequential 1 and sequential 6953 are the same niyyah sitting, filed twice.
Open Bukhari’s numbersInternational / sequential
1–7563 in this library (Muhsin Khan / Dar al-Salam). “Bukhari 1” is the first report of Revelation.
In-book
Book and hadith inside the kitab. Revelation 1:1 is sequential 1. Belief 2:6 is sequential 13 — “none of you believes until he loves…”
The repeat
Niyyah is 1 (Book 1, Hadith 1) and 6953 (Book 90, Hadith 1). Same matn, second filing. 7,589 rows in the edition; last number 7,563.
Older English (USC-MSA)
Volume · Book · Number on early websites. It does not match Dar al-Salam. Cite the scheme, or the search will open the wrong door.
Muslim dots variant roads (8.01). Bukhari re-files the same wording under a new sequential number. Search bukhari 1:1 or bukhari 90:1.
The sixth Sunan
Examine Sunan Ibn Majah
Last of the Six to be counted. A wider net than Nasai: he kept chapters the others missed, and with them more daif. Open four of his reports — the Sunnah opener, a wounded famous line, a purification report also in Muslim, and the golden trunk he shares with Bukhari.
Examine Sunan Ibn Majahمُحَمَّدُ بْنُ يَزِيدَ ابْنُ مَاجَه الْقَزْوِينِي
209–273 AH
Muhammad ibn Yazid of Qazvin. He heard in Iraq, the Hijaz, Sham and Egypt, and died in 273 AH. His Sunan is not a second Bukhari. Later critics still walk each number. Nur loads the whole book, including the Book of the Sunnah (1–266) that the chapter list had missed.
A book on the Sunnah
He opens with following the Prophet ﷺ — 266 reports before purification. Unique among the Six as a long muqaddimah.
A wider net
He preserves chapters others left. Useful. Not a grade. Each report still needs its own weighing.
Named grades
This edition stamps later critics (Albani, Arnaut, Zubair Ali Zai). The book itself does not grade by silence the way Bukhari does.
Ibn Majah 4227
Sahih
Tap a name
The Prophet ﷺ
The same wording Bukhari used to open the Sahih.
The same Madinan trunk as Bukhari 1. Ibn Majah printed two roads (Yazid and al-Layth) from Yahya. Later critics: sahih, agreed upon. His wider net also caught gold. Open the compare tool to see Bukhari’s names beside his.
The Six
How the great books authenticate
The same five tests — applied with different doors. Bukhari’s extra demand is not Muslim’s; Tirmidhi teaches while he collects. The method is one; the houses are not.
al-Bukhari — proof of meeting
He demanded evidence that A had sat with B, not only that they lived at the same time. That extra door is why “in Bukhari” became a grade of its own. He kept only what he judged sahih.
Read the hadithMuslim — contemporaneity
If two thiqah men lived at the same time and tadlis is not feared, Muslim accepts the link. He gathers every route of a report in one place, so the tree is visible.
Read the hadithal-Tirmidhi — he names the grade
The Jami teaches as it collects. He tells you sahih, hasan, gharib, and the later phrase hasan sahih. He cites extra roads and the speech of the critics.
Read the hadithAbu Dawud — law first
The Sunan is a book of legal hadith. Where nothing stronger exists he may include a lighter report — and often flags the wound. His silence is itself a kind of note.
Read the hadithal-Nasai — severity with men
Among the strictest after the Shaykhayn in jarh. A man Bukhari might carry, al-Nasai sometimes sets aside. His Sunan is thin because his door is narrow.
Read the hadithIbn Majah — a wider net
He preserves chapters the others missed, and with them more daif and a few munkar reports. Useful, not a second Bukhari. Each report still needs its own weighing.
Read the hadithWhat the chain actually says
The verbs of hearing
Samitu / haddathana
“I heard” / “he narrated to us.” Explicit sitting. The strongest formula.
An (“from”)
Ambiguous. A thiqah who does not commit tadlis may still be accepted; a mudallis is not, until he says he heard.
Qala (“he said”)
Weaker still if there is no proof of meeting. The critic reads the verb as carefully as the name.
How a narrator is ranked
al-Jarh wa al-tadil
Thiqah
Upright and precise. First-rank material for sahih.
Saduq
Truthful, with a lighter memory. Often the single step that makes a report hasan.
Daif
Weak — mistakes, a gap, or a critic’s wound. Pulls the report down.
Matruk
Abandoned. Too many faults; his narration is left.
Kadhdhab
A liar. A known liar in the chain is how many mawdu reports die.
A lighter chain can still be lifted
Other roads
Mutabi
A supporting route from the same Companion, a different student. It can lift a lighter narrator.
Shahid
A witness from another Companion with the same meaning. Meaning can be sound even when one wording is not.
Beyond the Six
Other compilers
The Six are not the whole science. These compilers used other doors — a musnad by companion, the practice of Madinah, a later Sahih, a commentary.
Ahmad — the Musnad
Arranged by Companion, not by topic. A vast net: sound, hasan, and lighter reports kept so no road is lost. Not a second Bukhari. Each file still needs its own weighing.
Method only — book not loaded here
al-Darimi — a Sunan between the Six
Older than some of the Six. A short Sunan with a long muqaddimah on knowledge. Later counted among the Nine. Strict, not as narrow as Bukhari.
Method only — book not loaded here
Malik — the Muwatta
Before the Six. He weighed chain and the practice of Madinah together. Some reports are mursal on purpose — the city’s amal was his extra door. Open it in the library.
Open in the libraryal-Nawawi — the Forty
A later selection, not a new Sahih. He chose reports already judged sound and taught them as a lamp. The grade belongs to the older books he drew from.
Open in the libraryIbn Hibban — his Sahih
He built a Sahih on his own rijal ranks. Broader than the Shaykhayn. Later critics accepted much of it and argued with some of his men.
Method only — book not loaded here
al-Hakim — the Mustadrak
He gathered what he thought met Bukhari’s or Muslim’s condition but missed their books. Many are sound. Some are not. Dhahabi walked through it after him.
Method only — book not loaded here
al-Bayhaqi — the great Sunan
A later warehouse of legal hadith, with chains and the speech of the critics. Useful for fiqh. Not a book that grades by silence the way Bukhari does.
Method only — book not loaded here
Ibn Hajar — the commentator
He did not compile a new collection. He opened Bukhari name by name in Fath al-Bari: who met whom, which wording is shadhdh, which door Bukhari used.
Method only — book not loaded here
The honest shelf
Books not loaded here
Nur is not a copy of Sunnah.com. Ten complete books are on this shelf — the Six, the Muwatta, and three Forties. These titles appear on Sunnah.com and are not copied into Nur.
See the ten books that are hereThe sitting
How a muhaddith actually works
Grading is not a feeling. It is a sequence. New routes can reopen a file that was closed a century ago.
- 1
Gather every route
A single isnad is a witness. The critic collects every tariq — every road the wording travelled — before judging any one of them.
- 2
Draw the tree
Names are laid out so meetings and gaps become visible. The page of a muhaddith looks like a family tree of hearing.
- 3
Identify each man
Not the famous name only — which Muhammad, which Sufyan. Dates, teachers, and who confused whom.
- 4
Test the meetings
Could A have heard B? Geography, age, and the formula he used (haddathana, an, samitu) all speak.
- 5
Compare the wordings
Matn against matn. Extra clauses, collapsed lists, a word that appears in only one town.
- 6
Hunt anomaly and illah
The quiet work. A thiqah who is alone against the Huffaz; a sitting that was two sittings.
- 7
Pronounce a grade
Sahih, hasan, daif, or worse — sometimes for this route only, sometimes for the hadith as a whole.
- 8
Remain open
A new manuscript, a forgotten tariq, a better reading of a man — the file can be reopened. The method is living.
The ranks
What Sahih, Hasan, Daif and Mawdu mean
Sahih — sound
Every test passed: a connected chain of upright, precise narrators; no anomaly; no hidden defect. The highest rank of attribution.
Hasan — good
Sound in the main, but a narrator is a degree lighter in precision (saduq rather than thiqah). Usable. Not the peak.
Daif — weak
A wound in the chain or the men. Not a basis for law unless supported by other routes. Many subtypes — not one grey fog.
Mawdu — fabricated
A liar, a confession, or a sentence that cannot be his ﷺ. Discarded. Teaching it as his words is a grave matter.
Criteria
What each grade actually requires
A grade is a verdict on seven tests, not a feeling about the sentence. Read across: sahih must hold every column. One wound drops the file.
| Criteria | Sahih | Hasan | Daif | Mawdu |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Connected chain | Each student sat with the teacher | The same — the chain is joined | A gap: mursal, munqati, or tadlis | Severed or invented sittings |
| The men | Every narrator thiqah — upright and known | Upright; one man is saduq, a degree lighter | A weak or discarded narrator | A known liar, or no real man at all |
| Precision | Memory or book is exact | Honest, with a lighter memory | Frequent mistakes, mixing of chains | Deliberate invention |
| Other roads | Alone is allowed if the man is first-rank | Often lifted by a mutabi or shahid | Lonely and wounded | A forged tree, or none |
| The wording | Agrees with Qur’an and stronger reports | The same | Odd extra clause, collapsed list | Contradicts what cannot be his ﷺ |
| Anomaly | None — he does not contradict the Huffaz | None | Possible shudhudh | The whole attribution is the anomaly |
| Hidden defect | A specialist finds none | None that drops it | A mix-up of names or sittings | The defect is the lie itself |
Common forms of weakness
Wounds in the chain
Mursal
A successor quotes the Prophet ﷺ and skips the Companion. The handshake at the top is missing.
Munqati
A break anywhere in the chain. Someone named a man he never met.
Mudal
Two or more links dropped in a row. The wound is wider than munqati.
Mudallas
Tadlis: a narrator says “from” someone in a way that hides how — or whether — he heard.
Munkar
A weak narrator contradicts the reliable. The wording is rejected as alien.
One route is not the same as a crowd
How many roads
Mutawatir
So many independent roads that collusion is unthinkable. The strongest transmission.
Mashhur
Well-known: three or more routes, but not mutawatir. Fame is not the same as soundness.
Aziz
At least two narrators at every layer. Rare, and prized when also sahih.
Gharib
A single narrator at some layer. Gharib can still be sahih — Bukhari 1 is famous and also, in parts, solitary.
Lived examples
Examine a chain, name by name
Pick one report. Tap each man. See who heard whom — and why this sitting is trusted.
إِنَّمَا الْأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ، وَإِنَّمَا لِكُلِّ امْرِئٍ مَا نَوَى
Sahih al-Bukhari 1
Tap a name
The Prophet ﷺ
He ﷺ spoke it. Everything below is a claim to have heard this wording.
Why this chain holds
A short, famous line of first-rank men. Each sitting is known. Later critics called it a golden isnad.
Ilm al-rijal
Six lives the method stands on
أَبُو هُرَيْرَة
Abu Hurairah
57 AH
The most prolific Companion in narration. A poor man who made the mosque his house and memory his work. Critics mapped his students with unusual care because so much of the Sunnah passes through him.
عَائِشَةُ بِنْتُ أَبِي بَكْر
Aisha bint Abi Bakr
58 AH
Mother of the Believers. The fiqh of the household, the night prayer, and the Prophet’s private character reach us largely through her. Scholars treat her as a jurist, not only a witness.
عُمَرُ بْنُ الْخَطَّاب
Umar ibn al-Khattab
23 AH
The first voice in Bukhari. Few reports, enormous weight. His presence in an isnad is itself a kind of seal — and the niyyah hadith begins with him.
مَالِكُ بْنُ أَنَس
Malik ibn Anas
179 AH
Imam of Madinah. The Muwatta is among the earliest surviving books of hadith and law. Bukhari’s “golden chain” often runs through him: Malik from Nafi from Ibn Umar.
مُحَمَّدُ بْنُ إِسْمَاعِيلَ الْبُخَارِي
al-Bukhari
256 AH
He sifted some six hundred thousand reports and kept about seven thousand with repetition. His condition was not only thiqah men — he required evidence they had met. That extra demand is why “in Bukhari” became a grade of its own.
ابْنُ حَجَرٍ الْعَسْقَلَانِي
Ibn Hajar
852 AH
The later master of the method. Fath al-Bari opens Bukhari; Nukhbat al-Fikar teaches the ranks you are reading. He is why these terms have a shared vocabulary across the ummah.
Try the method
Weigh three reports
Walk the same five questions a critic asks. No memorizing — just the tests that decide if a sentence may be attributed to him ﷺ.
إِنَّمَا الْأَعْمَالُ بِالنِّيَّاتِ
The first hadith of Bukhari. Walk the five tests.
1.Is every handshake in the chain known?
Terms
A small lexicon
- Isnad / sanad
- The chain of names. The support the text leans on.
- Matn
- The wording itself — what was said, after the names.
- Thiqah
- Trustworthy: upright and precise. The first rank of narrators.
- Saduq
- Truthful, with a lighter memory. Often the difference between sahih and hasan.
- Tadlis
- Hiding the manner of hearing. A narrator says “from” and conceals a gap or a weak man.
- al-Jarh wa al-tadil
- Wounding and declaring reliable — the disciplined praise and blame of narrators.
An introduction to Sunni mustalah al-hadith. Schools differ on some men and some grades. Shii scholarship has its own ilm al-rijal. This is not a legal ruling — ask a qualified scholar for fiqh.