Al-Fard (the singular report) and its categories
The author — may Allah have mercy on him — said:
23 – A report is fard when you confine it to a trustworthy narrator, or to a group, or when you limit it to a single recension.
This is the twenty-third category of ḥadith mentioned in the poem: al-fard, the singular report. The versifier lists three kinds of it:
- That which is restricted to a trustworthy narrator.
- That which is restricted to a group.
- That which is restricted to a single recension.
What, then, is al-fard?
We say: it is a report transmitted by only one narrator, meaning that a single man alone relates the ḥadith.
Most singular reports are weak, although some of them are sound and accepted. Nonetheless, the prevailing rule is that singular reports are weak, especially after the first three centuries. From that period onward the number of transmitters increased; a single shaykh might have six hundred students. If only one of them, and no one else, narrates a particular ḥadith from him, doubt naturally arises: how could such a narration remain unknown to that great multitude and be reported by just one person?
During the era of the Companions singularity was frequent. It also appeared in the generation of the Successors, though less so because the Successors were more numerous and widely dispersed. In the generation after them, singularity appeared again but was rarer than in the generation of the Successors.
Thus, the singular report is, more often than not, classified as weak.
Its kinds are three:
- That which is confined to a trustworthy narrator — i.e. a ḥadith transmitted solely by a reliable authority, with no one else narrating it — but it does not