The author—may Allah have mercy on him—said:
- “Convergent: alike in script alone;
Its opposite is the divergent—so beware of error.”
This is the twenty-ninth category in the poem’s classification of ḥadith sciences: al-muʾtalif wal-mukhtalif.
Al-muʾtalif wal-mukhtalif (identical in writing, different in pronunciation) concerns names whose letters coincide yet whose vocalization varies, as in ʿAbbās versus ʿAyyāsh, or Khayyāṭ versus Ḥabbāṭ, and the like.
In other words, the word’s structure is the same, but the way it is pronounced is not; this is what is called muʾtalif–mukhtalif.
It is termed muʾtalif (“convergent”) because the spelling converges, and mukhtalif (“divergent”) because the pronunciation diverges. At the same time it is also muftarq (“separate”) because the persons involved are distinct individuals.
Thus, both al-muttafiq wal-muftarq and al-muʾtalif wal-mukhtalif deal with multiple transmitters. When the names differ in pronunciation we call the case muʾtalif–mukhtalif; when they are the same in both spelling and pronunciation we call it muttafiq–muftarq. These are merely conventions, and, as the maxim states, “there is no dispute over terminology.”
What, then, is the benefit of knowing this category?
It prevents confusion between transmitters. Suppose we have ten men, all named “ʿAbbās.” We must determine which ʿAbbās appears in the chain, for one of them may be weak—
• because of poor memory,
• because his integrity is deficient, or
• for some other reason.
Therefore we must identify which ʿAbbās is meant so that we can judge whether his narration is acceptable or not. Many scholars have authored works on this subject