or from a duplicate copy and the like. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (may Allah have mercy on him) said that no guide-line should be drawn for such notes, whereas the preferred view is that—should one use a guide-mark—it is commendable to let it branch out from the very middle of the word that occasioned the insertion.

Sixth

Those who copy with utmost precision make systematic use of three symbols: taṣḥīḥ, taḍbīb, and tamrīḍ.

1. Taṣḥīḥ is to write the word ṣaḥḥ (“verified”) above a passage whose transmission and meaning are sound, yet which might invite doubt or disagreement.
2. Taḍbīb—also called tamrīḍ—consists in drawing an elongated stroke whose beginning resembles the letter ṣād, without actually touching the text beneath it. One draws it over material that is firmly transmitted but corrupt in wording or meaning, weak, abridged, or otherwise deficient; among such deficiencies are points of irsāl (a missing link) or inqiṭāʿ (a break) in the chain of transmission.
   Some copyists abbreviate the taṣḥīḥ mark so much that it is mistaken for the taḍbīb. In certain ancient master manuscripts one finds, within an isnād containing several transmitters linked together, a sign between their names that looks like a taḍbīb; it is not, however, a taḍbīb, but rather a symbol indicating connection.

Seventh

Should anything appear in the book that does not belong to it, it is removed by striking through, scraping, erasing, or the like—the best of these being a simple strike-through. The majority hold that one draws a clear line across the words to be cancelled, intermingling with them yet leaving them legible; this is called al-shaqq. Others say the cancelling line should sit above the words, connected to their first and last letters. Yet another view is to place half-circles at the beginning and end of the cancelled section. When the portion is lengthy, it may suffice to circle only its start and finish, or to circle the start and end of every line. Some copyists are satisfied with a small circle at the beginning and end of the addition, while another opinion calls for writing lā (“no”) at its start and ilā (“up to”) at its end.

If a word or phrase is duplicated, one opinion is to strike out the second occurrence; another is to retain whichever of the two is more neatly written and clearer. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ—may Allah have mercy on him—said: if both copies stand at the beginning of a line, cross out the second; if at the end, the first; and if one is at the beginning of a line and the other at the end of a different line, cancel the one at the end. When the repetition involves an iḍāfa (construct phrase), an adjective-noun pair, or the like, the two connected words are treated as a single unit.

As for scraping, gouging, and total erasure, the scholars deemed them disliked. Allah knows best.

Eighth

Scribes eventually came to rely on brief symbols for the words ḥaddathanā (“he narrated to us”) and akhbaranā (“he informed us”), and this convention became widespread