The Types of Tadlīs
The author—may Allah have mercy on him—said:
“… … … … … And that which is reported in a mudallas form is of two kinds.”
His statement, “And that which is reported in a mudallas form is of two kinds,” constitutes the twentieth category of hadith mentioned in this poem.
In that sentence, mudallas functions as a circumstantial qualifier of the verb “is reported,” while “two kinds” serves as the predicate of an implied subject. The word mā is a relative pronoun meaning “that which,” so the intended sense is: “That which is reported in a mudallas form is of two kinds.”
The term mudallas is derived from tadlīs; its linguistic root conveys the idea of darkness. In commercial dealings, tadlīs refers to showing merchandise in a condition better than it really is—such as withholding the milking of an animal so that its udder appears full, or repainting a wall so that an observer thinks it is newly built when in fact it is not.
In the field of hadith, however, tadlīs is divided into two categories, exactly as the author—may Allah have mercy on him—states here, although some scholars reckon three.
According to the author’s division, the two are:
- He indicates the first in the couplet:
“The first is to drop one’s shaykh,
Then report from the one above him with ‘from’ or ‘that.’”
This is called tadlīs al-taswiyah: the transmitter omits his own teacher and narrates from the teacher’s teacher, employing wording that outwardly suggests an unbroken chain.
For example, Khalid might say, “ʿAlī said such-and-such,” even though there is a man named Muḥammad between Khalid and ʿAlī. Khalid suppresses Muḥammad’s name and simply declares, “ʿAlī said …”
We label this practice tadlīs. In reality he has not fabricated the statement; he remains truthful, yet