The upshot of the three categories we have just mentioned is as follows: the first applies exclusively to the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections; the second to any report (1) that (2) possesses several independent chains; and the third to what has been transmitted by the leading imams. It is possible for all three to converge in a single ḥadith, so that (3) certainty of its veracity (4) is then by no means remote. And Allah knows best (5).
[Types of Singularity]
Singularity may occur at the root of the chain—that is, in (6) the specific point (7) upon which the isnād rests (8) and to which it ultimately returns, even if the routes are many; this is the segment that contains the Companion (9). Or it may (10) not be at that point, the singularity instead arising in the middle of the chain—for example, more than one person may transmit the report from the Companion, after which a single individual relates (11) it from only one of them, narrating it alone (12).
(1) MS D reads “ma.”
(2) The word “lahu” is absent from MS T.
(3) MSS W and Z read “wa-la.”
(4) MS A has “bi-sihatihi,” while MS D reads “fa-la yabʿud al-qatʿu bi-sidqihi ḥinaʾidhin,” with the clauses reversed.
(5) Marginal note in MS A, in the author’s own hand: “thumma balagha qirāʾat baḥth, wa samiʿa al-jamāʿa”; in MS D (same hand): “thumma balagha qirāʾatan wa baḥthan”; in MS J (same hand): “thumma balagha qirāʾat baḥth ʿalayya,” and he corrected it there.
(6) The preposition “fī” is missing from MS Y.
(7) MS B reads “al-waḍʿ,” a corrupt reading.
(8) MS A adds “ilayh.”
(9) Al-Biqāʿī explains that the intended reference is to the tābiʿī level: only one tābiʿī reports the narration from the companion; it is not to be understood as referring to the companion himself, for a companion’s solitary report carries no hint of weakness. See al-Laqānī, Qaḍāʾ al-Waṭar, p. 644; the same meaning is cited by Ibn Qutlūbughā in his marginalia, p. 46.
(10) MS L reads “takūn.”
(11) MS Y reads “yarwī.”
(12) MSS A, D, H, K, and L read “yatafarrad.”