and if he makes a copy, he must not transfer his certificate of audition to that copy until it has been properly collated; likewise, no audition may be transferred to any manuscript until a satisfactory collation has taken place, unless he clearly states that it has not been collated. Allah knows best.

Twenty-Sixth Type
The Etiquette of Reporting Hadith

A number of its basic points have already been mentioned under the two preceding types and elsewhere. Some scholars have been overly strict in this matter, while others have been unduly lax.

Among the rigorists are those who say that authority lies only in what the narrator relates from memory after having reviewed it; this view is reported from Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Abū Bakr al-Ṣaydilānī al-Shāfiʿī. Others allow narration from one’s written copy, provided the manuscript has never left the narrator’s possession.

As for the lax, a summary of their positions was given under Type Twenty-Four. Included among them are people who narrated from copies that had not been collated with their exemplars; al-Ḥākim judged such narrators to be discredited, saying, “This occurs frequently; a number of eminent scholars and devout men have done it.”

Yet, as noted at the end of the fourth branch of the previous type, it is permissible to transmit from an uncollated copy under certain conditions. It may be that al-Ḥākim disagreed on this point, or that he meant cases in which those conditions are absent.

The sound view, held by the majority, is the middle course: once the requirements for bearing and collating described above have been fulfilled, it is permissible to narrate from the manuscript, even in the owner’s absence, so long as it is, in all probability, safe from alteration—especially if the owner is someone who would ordinarily detect any change. Allah knows best.