Some scholars have restricted the term mutābaʿa to a corroboration that agrees in wording—whether or not it is transmitted by that very Companion (1)—and they reserve the term shāhid for what agrees only in meaning under the same conditions (2). Yet one also finds mutābaʿa applied to what has just been called a shāhid, and the reverse as well (3)(4); the matter is tolerant.

[al-Iʿtibār]
Know that surveying the various chains of transmission contained in the comprehensive collections (jāmiʿ works) and the Musnads (5), as well as in the smaller fascicles, for a ḥadith that is thought to be unique so as to determine whether it possesses a corroborating mutābaʿa (6) or not, is what the scholars term al-iʿtibār (comparative investigation).

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ’s statement (7), “knowledge of iʿtibār, mutābaʿāt, and shawāhid,” might suggest that iʿtibār is a separate category alongside the other two. That is not the case (8); rather, it denotes the procedure by which one reaches them (9).

All of the previously mentioned classes of accepted reports (maqbūl) are worth distinguishing because their respective ranks become significant when they are set in opposition to one another (10). Allah knows best (11).