A report is called marfūʿ (“raised”) because of the lofty station it occupies: the chain ends with the Prophet ﷺ, and that is the highest level a narration can reach.
By contrast, a report ascribed directly to Allah Most High is termed a ḥadīth qudsī, a divine ḥadīth, or a lordly ḥadīth, for its ultimate point of reference is the Lord of all worlds, whereas the marfūʿ ends with the Prophet ﷺ.
The author’s words, “And what is ascribed to a Follower is the maqṭūʿ,” introduce the seventh category. Maqṭūʿ is the name given by the ḥadīth specialists to any report attributed to a Follower (tābiʿī) or to those who came after them. It is so called because, in rank, it is cut off from both the marfūʿ and the mawqūf.
Thus, were a statement of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī to be transmitted, we would say, “This is a maqṭūʿ athar.”
Reports traced to a Companion fall into two kinds:
- Those that bear the ruling of being marfūʿ; these are called “constructively marfūʿ.”
- Those that do not carry that ruling; these are called mawqūf.
Accordingly, narrations transmitted from Abū Bakr or ʿUmar—may Allah be pleased with them—or from any of the Companions are labelled mawqūf. This is merely a convention, and conventions are not a point of contention. Linguistically one could even call the marfūʿ “mawqūf,” because it stops with the Prophet ﷺ, but terminology is conventional, and no objection should be raised over conventions.
The scholars state that the criterion for deeming a report “constructively marfūʿ” is that it leaves no room for personal reasoning or opinion; such information can only be taken from the revealed law. For example, when a Companion narrates matters concerning the Day of Resurrection or other unseen realities, we say that the report is constructively marfūʿ, because ijtihād has no place in it.