The Muʿanʿan and the Mubham
The author — may Allah bestow His mercy upon him — said:
13 – A muʿanʿan is: “ʿan Saʿīd, ʿan Karam…,”
and a mubham is any report in which a narrator is not named.

The term muʿanʿan is derived from the particle ʿan (“from”), and it refers to a narration transmitted with that wording. This is the eleventh category of hadith listed in the poem, such as a chain that reads: ʿan Nāfiʿ, ʿan Ibn ʿUmar, or a narrator saying: “So-and-so told me, ʿan so-and-so, ʿan so-and-so, ʿan so-and-so.”

The author was content to define the category by giving an example, which is permissible, for the aim of a definition is to clarify the thing defined, and sometimes an example suffices in place of a formal definition. His illustrative chain is “ʿan Saʿīd, ʿan Karam,” that is, “I transmit this hadith ʿan Saʿīd, ʿan Karam.” Such is the muʿanʿan.

A parallel type is the muʾannan, which is narrated with the wording an (“that”), as when a transmitter says: “So-and-so related to me that so-and-so said, that so-and-so said…” and so forth.

The ruling on both the muʿanʿan and the muʾannan is that the chain is deemed continuous, except when the transmitter is known for tadlīs (concealing an intermediary). In that case, continuity is not affirmed unless he expressly states, elsewhere, that he heard it. For this reason one must be aware of who the mudallīsīn are, so that when a hadith comes simply with the wording ʿan and the narrator is a mudallīs, one does not judge the chain to be connected. The mudallīs may drop the intermediary between himself and the named narrator as an act of tadlīs, perhaps because that intermediary is weak in reliability or integrity; he omits him so that the chain will appear sound. The scholars’ caution here is part of their vigilance in protecting the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ and a blessing Allah has granted this community.

His words: “and a mubham is any report in which a narrator is not named.”