—when a text is presented to the ḥadith master and he authorises it orally, the transmitter should say: anbaʾanī; and when it is sent to him in writing, he should say: kataba ilayya. Abū Jaʿfar Ibn Ḥamdān remarked: “Every instance in al-Bukhārī where he says, ‘So-and-so said to me (qāla lī),’ refers to a presentation or a hand-over.” Some scholars have expressed an ijāza with the wording, “So-and-so informed us that so-and-so narrated (or informed) him,” a usage preferred—or at least reported—by al-Khaṭṭābī, but it is weak. Later authorities, when an ijāza occurs above the immediate shaykh, employ the preposition ʿan; thus one who heard from his teacher by ijāza on the authority of another says, “I read to so-and-so ʿan so-and-so ….” Nevertheless, the prohibition on using the unqualified formulas ḥaddathanā and akhbaranā is not removed merely because the grantor of the ijāza allows their use. Allah knows best.

Section Five
Al-Mukātaba (Correspondence)

This is when a teacher writes down his audition for an absent or present student, either in his own hand or at his direction. It falls into two categories:

1. A correspondence devoid of ijāza.
2. A correspondence coupled with an explicit ijāza, as in the words, “I authorise you in what I have written for you or to you,” and similar phrases. Such a letter is, in validity and strength, on a par with a munāwala that is accompanied by ijāza.

As for the bare letter, some—among them the judge al-Māwardī al-Shāfiʿī—prohibited narrating on its basis. Many of the early and later scholars, however, permitted it, including Ayyūb al-Sakhtiyānī, Manṣūr, al-Layth, a number of Shāfiʿīs, and scholars of legal theory. This is the sound, well-known position among the ḥadith specialists. Hence their compilations frequently contain the wording, “So-and-so wrote to me, saying: ḥaddathanā so-and-so,” and this is precisely what they intend; it is the practice among them and is counted as a connected transmission because it conveys the sense of ijāza. Al-Samʿānī went further, maintaining that it is even stronger than an ijāza. It is sufficient, he held, to recognise the writer’s handwriting; some required the testimony of witnesses, but that view is weak. The correct procedure, therefore, is that when transmitting on the basis of such a letter one says: “So-and-so wrote to me, saying: ḥaddathanā so-and-so,” or