Since it is a firmly established principle that words are but vessels for meanings and that the meanings themselves are the true object of concern, it is of no consequence thereafter whether the wording happens to coincide or diverge. For this reason the overwhelming majority of scholars have agreed that a ḥadīth may be transmitted according to its meaning, subject to the detailed conditions set forth in the science of ḥadīth terminology. They further stipulated that whoever reports a ḥadīth by meaning should add the phrase, “or as he said,” or “something to that effect.”

Had al-Bukhārī’s narration conveyed the same meaning as the report of Ibn Minā, it would not have been permissible to append the remark nahwahu (“its like”), for the two are not alike in meaning. The narration of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Jaʿfar, however, is identical in meaning to that of al-Bukhārī; hence al-Tirmidhī—one of the leading authorities in this discipline—was justified in attaching the phrase nahwahu, that is, “similar to Ibn Jaʿfar’s wording and identical in sense.”

With this clarified, insisting on a mere difference in wording is of no practical value so long as the meaning is one and the same.