Among the varieties of a musalsal and an illustration of it are the following.

The author—may Allah have mercy on him—then said:
11 – “In the same fashion he related it to me while standing … or, having narrated it, he smiled.”

That is to say: one form of the musalsal is for every transmitter in the chain to declare, “So-and-so related it to me while standing,” then say, “So-and-so related it to me while standing,” and so on, all the way to the end of the isnād.

The same applies if each narrator says, “So-and-so related it to me while he was lying on his bed,” and all of them agree on that description; such a report is also classed as musalsal.

Another pattern is for the narrator to say, “He related it to me,” and then smile; this smile is repeated by every transmitter throughout the chain.

Suppose, for instance, that the narrators concurred when transmitting the hadith of Abu Hurayrah—may Allah be pleased with him—about the man who had intercourse during the daytime in Ramadan. When the man was given the charity he exclaimed, “Messenger of Allah, is there anyone poorer than I am? By Allah, there is no household between its two lava fields poorer than mine.” At that point the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—laughed until his molar teeth became visible.¹ If thereafter every scholar who recounted the report laughed at that sentence until his molars could be seen, we would likewise label the narration musalsal, because all the transmitters shared a single state, namely, laughter.

What, then, is the benefit of identifying a musalsal?

We say that the knowledge of musalsal reports yields several advantages:
First: it is, in truth, an engaging branch of study, for the narrators concur on a specific condition—especially when one says, “He related it to me while lying on his bed asleep,” “He related it to me while performing ablution,” “He related it to me while eating,” “He related it to me and then smiled,” or “He related it to me and then wept.” Such instances