is widely employed, and that was before the use of akhbaranā (he informed us) became common for reports read aloud to the shaykh. He added, “After that come anbaʾanā and nabbaʾanā (he apprised us), but they are rarely used.”
The Shaykh went on to say: ḥaddathanā and akhbaranā are superior to samiʿtu (I heard) from one angle, for samiʿtu does not itself show that the shaykh actually conveyed the report to the narrator, whereas the other two clearly do. As for the phrases qāla lanā or dhakara lanā (he said to us / he mentioned to us), they carry the force of ḥaddathanā, though they suit a session of scholarly review (mudhākara) better than the formal ḥaddathanā. The most transparent wording is simply qāla or dhakara without adding “to me” or “to us.” This too is construed as direct hearing whenever the narrator’s meeting with the shaykh is established—as stated earlier in the discussion of the muʿḍal report—especially when it is known that the narrator never says qāla except for what he personally heard from him. Al-Khaṭīb limited treating it as evidence of hearing to that last condition, but the prevalent view is that the condition itself is not necessary.
Category Two
Reading to the shaykh
Most ḥadith scholars call this mode ʿarḍ (presentation). Whether you read yourself or someone else reads while you listen, whether the reading is from a book or from the shaykh’s memory, so long as the shaykh himself—or a reliable person—holds his master copy, the transmission is sound by consensus, apart from an isolated opinion attributed to a figure of no consequence.
They then disagreed over its rank vis-à-vis hearing the shaykh’s own words: some said the two are equal; others preferred direct listening; still others preferred reading.
- Equality is the view reported from Mālik, his students and teachers, the majority of the scholars of the Hijaz and Kufa, al-Bukhārī, and others.
- The opinion that direct listening is superior is held by the majority of Eastern scholars, and this is the correct view.
- The opinion that reading is superior is attributed to Abū Ḥanīfa, Ibn Abī Dhiʾb, and others, and is also one narration from Mālik.