Similarly, anyone who is identified by his grandfather’s name can easily be mistaken for someone (1) whose own name is the same (2) and whose father’s name (3) is identical to that grandfather’s name (4).

[Those whose name, their father’s name, and their grandfather’s name coincide]

It is also necessary to recognise the case of a man whose personal name, his father’s name, and his grandfather’s name are all identical—for example, al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan ibn al-Hasan (5) ibn ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib (6). Cases occur in which the duplication extends even further (7), and this is counted among the sub-types of the musalsal.

It may likewise happen that a man’s name and his father’s name coincide with the name (8) and father’s name of someone higher up the lineage, as in the case of Abū al-Yumn al-Kindī: he is Zayd ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd ibn al-Ḥasan ibn Zayd ibn al-Ḥasan (9).

[Those whose name matches that of their teacher and their teacher’s teacher]

Or (10) the name of the transmitter may coincide with the name of his teacher and the teacher’s teacher, and so on—ʿImrān, from ʿImrān, from ʿImrān (11); the first is identified