—the Qur’an would surely have forbidden it. (1)
Included under what I have called (2) “marfūʿ by ruling” is every report that is couched in an allusive expression where an explicit attribution to the Prophet ﷺ would normally appear—for example, when a Successor quoting a Companion says: “he raises the ḥadīth,” “he relates it,” “he transmits it,” “he conveys it,” or (3) “it has reached,” or (4) “he narrated it.”
Sometimes they limit themselves to the verb “he said,” omit the speaker, yet intend thereby (5) the Prophet ﷺ, as in the report of Ibn Sīrīn from Abū Hurayrah who said: “He said: ‘You will fight (6) a people…’ (7),” and so on.
Al-Khaṭīb observes that this is a technical convention peculiar to the scholars of Baṣrah. (8)
[Formulas that may imply marfūʿ status]
Among the equivocal expressions is a Companion’s statement: “Part of the Sunnah is such-and-such,”
(1) The author states in Fath al-Bari, 9/305: “Sufyan said, ‘Had it been something the Quran forbids, the Quran would have forbidden us from it.’ This clearly shows that Sufyan reached this view by inference.” This extra wording is one of those reported only by Muslim. In the margin of MS D, in the author’s own hand, it reads: “thumma balagha kadhalik” (then it likewise reached); the margin of MS K has: “balagha qiraah” (it reached as a recitation).
(2) MSS H, W, Z, and K read “bi-qawlihi” (“by his statement”).
(3) MS T omits the word “aw” (“or”).
(4) The phrase “aw riwayatan” (“or a narration”) is absent from MS Y. MS B has: “aw yablugh, aw riwayatan bihi” (“or it reaches, or a narration by him”); MS J: “aw yablugh bihi riwayatan” (“or it reaches by him a narration”); MSS H, W, and Z: “aw riwayatan, aw yablugh bihi” (“or a narration, or it reaches by him”), with the elements in reverse order.
(5) MSS W and Z read “wa-yuridunahu” (“and they mean him/it”) instead of “wa-yuriduna bihi” (“and they mean by it”).
(6) MSS D and Y write the verb as tuqatilun (second-person plural “you fight”); in MS H the word appears without diacritical dots.
(7) This exact wording has not been located elsewhere; it is transmitted through Ibn Sirin from Abu Hurayrah as an explicitly marfuʿ (prophetic) report in Musnad Ahmad, no. 10397.
(8) See: al-Kifayah, p. 418.