Hadith Investigations
First Section:
The reports that have reached us are divided into three categories:

1. Hadith – confined to what is attributed to the Prophet ﷺ.
2. Athar – confined to what is attributed to anyone below him, such as the Companions, the Successors, and those who came after them.
3. Khabar – an umbrella term that includes both hadith and athar.
   The word athar is not used for a report traced back to the Prophet ﷺ unless it is qualified, as in, “In the athar from the Prophet ﷺ.” Unqualified, it refers to what is attributed to a Companion or to those after him.

Second Section:
There are three possible modes of reception:

1. The narrator explicitly states that he heard it from the source.
2. It is established that he met the source, though he does not state that he heard it from him.
3. He is a contemporary of the source, but it has not been proven that they met.
   If hearing from the source is confirmed and the narrator says, “I heard So-and-so,” or, “So-and-so related to me,” the continuity of the chain is clear.
   If meeting is confirmed but not hearing, and the narrator says, “So-and-so said such-and-such,” or, “From So-and-so, such-and-such,” without adding, “I heard,” or, “He narrated to me,” yet the encounter between the two is established, the chain is still regarded as connected. This is because, as long as the narrator is upright, the default assumption is that he would not attribute a statement to someone unless he had actually heard it from him.