The author—may Allah have mercy on him—said:

16 – “A mursal report is one from which the Companion has been dropped….”

This is the sixteenth category of hadith listed in the poem, namely the mursal.

In the language of the Arabs, mursal means “unrestricted” or “let loose”; they say, “He sent the she-camel into the pasture,” that is, he set it free.

In hadith terminology the poet defines it as: a narration from which the Companion is missing.

Some scholars refine the definition, saying: it is a report traced back to the Prophet by a Successor (tābiʿī) or by a Companion who never heard directly from the Prophet ﷺ. This is the more precise wording, because the author’s expression implies that once a Companion appears in the chain the report is no longer mursal—even if that Companion never actually heard the Prophet, such as Muḥammad ibn Abī Bakr—may Allah have mercy on him—who was born during the Farewell Pilgrimage. That position is unsound, for according to the leading authorities, any narration of a Companion who did not hear from the Prophet ﷺ is treated as mursal.

The mursal belongs to the categories of weak hadith, since the link between the Prophet ﷺ and the narrator is unknown, except in the following cases:

1. If the missing intermediary is identified, the ruling follows the standing of that individual.
2. If the person attributing the report is himself a Companion.
3. If it is known that the narrator never attributes a report except through a Companion.
4. If the Muslim community has accepted the report as authentic.