Likewise, the suspended form of authorization was used by Abu Bakr ibn Abi Khaythamah (1).
A large number of scholars transmitted hadith on the basis of a general ijazah (2). One of the hadith masters compiled their names in a separate book and arranged them alphabetically because they were so numerous (3).
All of this—-as Ibn al-Ṣalah (4) observed—-is an excessive latitude that is not commendable. Even a specific, individualized ijazah (5) was a matter of sharp dispute among the early authorities regarding its validity, and although later scholars eventually treated it as acceptable in practice, it is, by unanimous agreement, inferior to direct audition. How, then, when the sort of unchecked expansion just mentioned is added to it? In that case it becomes even weaker (6). Nevertheless, in the aggregate it is still better than citing a hadith as muʿḍal (with two or more consecutive links missing). Allah knows best.
With this, the discussion of the categories of transmission formulas (7) comes to an end.
(1) The person in question is the ḥāfiẓ Abū Bakr Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythama Zuhayr ibn Ḥarb (d. 279 AH/892 CE); see al-Dhahabī, Tadhkirat al-Ḥuffāẓ, 2:130. The wording attributed to him is recorded by al-Abnāsi in al-Shadhā al-Fayyāḥ, 1:302, and by al-ʿIrāqī in his Sharḥ al-Tabṣira wa-l-Tadhkira, 1:424: “Imām Abū ʾl-Ḥasan Muḥammad ibn Abī ʾl-Ḥusayn ibn al-Wazzān said: I found in the handwriting of Abū Bakr ibn Abī Khaythama: ‘I have granted Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā ibn Maslama an ijāza (authorization) to transmit from me whatever he wishes from the Kitāb al-Tārīkh that Abū Muḥammad al-Qāsim ibn al-Aṣbagh and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā heard from me, exactly as they heard it. I also permit him to extend this authorization to any of his companions he wishes. Should he prefer the ijāza to be renewed after this, I hereby renew it for him in this letter of mine.’ He then wrote: ‘Aḥmad ibn Abī Khaythama, in his own hand, in Shawwāl of the year 276.’
(2) Manuscript J adds the word thumma (“then”).
(3) This refers to Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥusayn ibn Abī ʾl-Badr, the ḥāfiẓ and Baghdādī scribe, as stated by al-ʿIrāqī in al-Taqyīd wa-l-Īḍāḥ, p. 183, and in Sharḥ al-Tabṣira wa-l-Tadhkira, 1:419.
(4) See his introduction, p. 154.
(5) Manuscript J reads al-ḥāṣila (“the outcome”).
(6) Manuscripts B and D read ḍuʿfan, with ḍamma on the ḍād; the adopted wording follows W and K.
(7) In the margin of A—written in the author’s hand—appears: “thumma balagha samāʿan” (“then it reached [him] by direct audition”); in the margins of D and W—also in his hand—it reads: “thumma balagha kadhālik” (“then it reached [him] likewise”).