and still others gave different figures. This discrepancy—without doubt—shakes the report, yet it is not a fatal defect, for their disagreement over the price does not touch the heart of the narration, namely: that selling gold for gold when another material is attached to it is prohibited and invalid.

The same holds for the story of Jabir’s camel -1, which the Prophet ﷺ bought from him. The transmitters differ about its price—was it an ūqiyah (roughly an ounce), or something more, or something less? Such variance is not reckoned a disqualifying flaw, because the point of the report is simply that the Prophet ﷺ purchased Jabir’s camel for a specific sum, with Jabir stipulating that the animal carry him to Madinah. That core meaning remains unaffected; at most the narrators disagree over the exact amount, and that is not a defect that impugns the hadith.

A genuine disqualifying defect, by contrast, is when two people relate the same hadith, one in the negative form and the other in the affirmative. This is unquestionably a damaging flaw, and—God willing—we shall address it under the heading of the muḍṭarib (muddled) hadith, in which the narrators’ inconsistency alters the meaning.