Type Twenty-Four
How a ḥadīth is heard, received, and accurately preserved

The narration of a Muslim who has reached puberty is admissible, including whatever he received before attaining either Islam or adulthood. A group of scholars rejected the second case and erred thereby. Several scholars have said that it is recommended to begin attending ḥadīth sessions after the age of thirty; others put it at twenty. In our own times, however, the correct view is to start as soon as one is capable of proper listening, and to begin writing and classifying what is heard as soon as one is fit for that—something that differs from person to person.

Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d. 544 AH) relates that the experts of the craft fixed the earliest valid age for hearing at five years, and this has become the prevailing practice. The sound criterion, though, is discernment (tamīz): if the child understands what is said and can answer appropriately, he is considered discerning and his hearing counts; otherwise, it does not. A similar view is reported from Mūsā ibn Hārūn and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.

A presentation of the modes of receiving ḥadīth
They may be reduced to eight categories.

Category One:
Listening to the shaykh’s own words

This may occur through dictation or otherwise, whether the shaykh is reciting from memory or from his book, and it is the loftiest category according to the majority. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ said: “There is unanimous agreement that in this case the listener may transmit by saying: ḥaddathanā, akhbaranā, anbaʾanā, ‘I heard so-and-so,’ ‘he told us,’ or ‘he mentioned to us.’”

Al-Khaṭīb said: “The highest of these formulae is ‘I heard,’ followed by ḥaddathanā and ḥaddathanī, then akhbaranā, and it…"