al-Raḥmān, and from ʿAbd al-Raḥmān it was taken up by ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb.
Mursal reports, when they come through several independent routes and are free of deliberate collusion or even unintentional coincidence, are unquestionably sound. Any transmitted statement must be either true—accurately reflecting the original event—or false, whether through intentional fabrication or mistaken error. Once it is shown to be free of deliberate lying and inadvertent error, it is, beyond doubt, true.
Accordingly, when a ḥadīth reaches us from two or more directions, and we know that the transmitters did not agree beforehand to invent it, and that such agreement could not have occurred accidentally, we know it to be authentic. Imagine, for example, a man describing an incident that took place, recounting in detail the words spoken and the actions performed. A second person—known not to have consulted the first—relates the same incident with the very same details. One is then certain that the event happened, at least in general outline; for had both men fabricated it, whether intentionally or by mistake, ordinary experience tells us they would not coincide on such a constellation of particulars without prior collusion.
A man might, by chance, compose a single line of verse that matches another man’s line, or fabricate a brief lie that someone else happens to replicate. But if he were to compose a long, elaborate poem, rich in themes, unified in meter and rhyme, experience shows that another person will not independently produce an identical poem in wording and meaning. We naturally conclude that the latter must have borrowed it from the former. The same holds for an extended report containing diverse elements: if a second narrator produces the very same narrative, he has either conspired with the first, taken it from him, or else the report is simply true.
By this method we verify the reliability of most transmitted materials that come to us through multiple, variant lines—even when no single line is sufficient on its own because it is mursal or its transmitter is weak. What this procedure cannot secure, however, are the exact verbal formulations and subtle nuances that such a pathway does not reveal, and for those one need not