explicit audition is indispensable, and hearing from the transmitter himself is the strongest form of transmission; this is the understanding the author follows in defining the muttaṣil.

Others, however, maintain that a muttaṣil report is one whose isnād is uninterrupted, each narrator having taken it from the one above him all the way to the chain’s endpoint. On that basis it would encompass mawqūf and maqṭūʿ narrations alike, whether they were conveyed through direct audition or by another mode, so long as the chain remains unbroken.

This view, they argue, is sounder than the author’s wording, for a muttaṣil report is simply any narration whose isnād is intact: every transmitter relates it from his predecessor, whether the report is marfūʿ, mawqūf, or maqṭūʿ, and whether the formula of transmission indicates hearing or some other means. In short, whatever possesses an unbroken chain is classed as muttaṣil.

We have already mentioned the disagreement among the hadith scholars regarding whether actual meeting is required or whether mere contemporaneity suffices, and we have addressed that question earlier ⦗1⦘.

For a chain to be deemed continuous it is not necessary to verify that the narrator heard that specific hadith from his teacher; it is enough to know that he heard from him in general—unless it is established that he received only a single report from that teacher, such as “the hadith of such-and-such.” In that scenario, anything beyond that lone report would not be considered muttaṣil.

It has likewise been said that al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī heard nothing from Samura ibn Jundub—may Allah be pleased with him—except the hadith concerning the ʿaqīqah sacrifice. Consequently, if al-Ḥasan were to relate from Samura any report other than the ʿaqīqah narration, it would not be regarded as muttaṣil.

The issue is a point of contention among the scholars, yet we would contend that such exhaustive limitation is difficult; to claim that al-Ḥasan heard from Samura nothing but the hadith of the ʿaqīqah