both he and his teacher hold their respective copies during the audition, and it is recommended that anyone without a copy look on with them, especially if he intends to transcribe from that copy.

Yahya ibn Maʿin stated, “It is impermissible to transmit from anything other than the teacher’s original unless one has inspected it at the time of listening.” The position adopted by the majority, however, is that such inspection and personal collation are not required; it is enough that a trustworthy person has collated the manuscript, whenever that may have taken place. It likewise suffices to compare it with a branch copy that was itself collated against the teacher’s exemplar, or with the exemplar of the teacher’s own teacher that served to check the teacher’s copy.

Even when no collation has been performed at all, transmission from the manuscript was allowed by al-Ustad Abu Ishaq, Abu Bakr al-Ismaʿili, al-Barqani, and al-Khatib, provided the scribe is accurate, seldom omits anything, has copied directly from an original, and makes it clear at the moment of narration that the text has not been collated. The same precautions that we have mentioned concerning his own book must be observed with his teacher’s manuscript in relation to those above him in the chain, and he should not imitate those who, once they know a student has merely “heard” a book, are satisfied with whatever copy happened to be at hand. A further discussion of this disagreement and other related points will appear at the beginning of the next section.

Fifth:

The preferred way to mark an omission—technically called laḥq (with fatḥah on the lām and ḥāʾ)—is to draw, from the point of omission in the line, an upward stroke that bends slightly between the two lines toward the side where the insertion will be written. Another view holds that the bend should be extended as far as the beginning of the insertion, and the added text should be written opposite the bend in the right-hand margin if it is wide enough; but if the omission occurs at the end of a line, the guide-mark should be drawn into the left margin and the insertion written slanting upward toward the top of the page.

If the inserted passage exceeds a single line, its lines should begin at the top and proceed downward; if on the right side of the page, they end at the inner margin, and if on the left, at the outer edge. When the insertion ends, the scribe should write ṣaḥḥ (“verified”). Some say that with ṣaḥḥ he should also add rajaʿ (“returned”); others suggest writing, inside the body of the text, the word that joins to the insertion—but this is disapproved, for it creates a misleading elongation. As for marginalia that are not part of the original—such as commentary, correction of an error, or noting variant transmissions,