within its elucidation would be more fitting; accordingly I adopted this method (1), a road few traverse (2).
(Thus I say), seeking from Allah (3) success in what follows (4):
[The Distinction Between Khabar and Hadith]
A khabar (5), in the view of the scholars of this discipline (6), is synonymous with a hadith. Another opinion holds that a hadith is what is transmitted from the Prophet ﷺ, whereas a khabar is what comes from someone else; accordingly (7) the one who occupies himself with chronicles (8) and similar writings (9) is called an akhbārī (10), while the one devoted to the Prophetic Sunnah is termed a muḥaddith. A third view states that the relation between the two is one of unrestricted generality and specificity: every hadith is a khabar, but not every khabar is a hadith (11).
(1) Copies B and M read al-tariq ("the path").
(2) Copies J and H read al-masalik ("the pathways"). In the margin of A, in the author’s own hand: "It has reached the son … Written by its author." About three words after "the son" are erased.
(3) Copy K adds the word taʿala ("Exalted").
(4) In the margin of J, autograph note: "Shaykh Taj al-Din al-Iskandari completed a reading and discussion with me. Written by: Ibn Hajar."
(5) Copy D adds wa-huwa ("and it is"); copy T inserts the phrase: "a division of speech; in its definition will come what clarifies speech, and it is …"; a marginal note on copy K reads: "a type of speech; in its definition will come what clarifies speech, and it is …"
(6) The word hadha ("this") is absent from A, D, T, Y, and K.
(7) Copy B reads thamma ("there"), while H, W, and Z give thammah (same word with a final h).
(8) Copy H reads ishtaghala ("was occupied").
(9) Copy H reads yushakiluha ("resembles it").
(10) Copy W has al-ikhbari (with a kasra on the initial hamza); the adopted reading from A, J, D, Z, and H is al-akhbari. Al-Samʿani, al-Ansab 1/130, states that the word is vocalised with fatha on the alif, sukun on the khāʾ, fatha on the bāʾ, and ends with rāʾ; see also Taj al-ʿArus 11/134.
(11) From the phrase "wa-qila: baynahuma ʿumum" ("and it was said: there is a generality between them") up to this point is missing from copy T. In the margin of W: "Praise be to Allah, Shaykh Shihab al-Din Ibn al-Akhasasi has read and discussed it with me. Written by: Ibn Hajar."