The Musnad and Its Defining Criterion
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The author—may Allah have mercy on him—said:
8 – The musnad is the report whose chain is joined
From its transmitter right up to the Chosen One, with no break.
This is the sixth category of ḥadith mentioned in the poem. With respect to the isnād we have five technical terms:
- musnad
- musnid
- musnad ilayh
- isnād
- sanad
The author defines the musnad as a report whose chain of transmission is continuous from the narrator all the way to the Chosen One, Muḥammad ﷺ.
His phrase “with no break (wa-lam yabin)” clarifies what continuity means: that no link has been severed. Accordingly, in his usage a musnad is a marfūʿ report whose isnād is uninterrupted.
• Its being marfūʿ is implied by the words “up to the Chosen One.”
• Its being continuous is indicated by “whose chain is connected—without a break.”
That, then, is the musnad.
On this basis a mawqūf report is not a musnad, because it is not marfūʿ—that is, it does not reach the Prophet ﷺ. Likewise, a munqaṭiʿ in which one or more transmitters are missing is not a musnad, because continuity is a condition. This is the view adopted by the author and it is the position of the majority of ḥadith scholars.
Some, however, consider the term musnad to be more general than this, holding that everything that is attributed to