If the narrator and the person from whom he transmits are contemporaries, sharing both age and an occasion of meeting (1), the category is al-aqrān (peer narrations) (2).
When each of them relates from the other, it is called al-mudabbaj (reciprocal narration) (3).
If he narrates (4) from someone (5) below him in rank, the classification is al-akābir ʿani’l-aṣāghir—elders transmitting from juniors. Included in this (6) are fathers who narrate from their sons; the converse occurs far more frequently (7). Also subsumed under it (8) is the report of one who narrates from his father, who in turn narrates from his grandfather (9).
If (10) two students share a single shaykh, and one of them dies before the other, the situation is termed al-sābiq wa’l-lāḥiq (the predecessor and the successor).
When a narrator reports from two teachers who bear the same name and are not otherwise distinguishable (11), identifying (12) which of the two is meant clarifies (13) the previously indistinct teacher (al-muhmal).
(1) MS J reads: “aw al-luqi” (or the encounter), MSS D, W, and H: “aw fi al-luqi” (or during the encounter), and MS E: “aw fi al-liqaʾ” (or during the meeting). The author remarks in Nuzhat al-Nazar: “Al-luqi means receiving (knowledge) directly from one’s shaykhs.”
(2) MS E has “al-iqrar” (acknowledgement), which is a scribal error. The author adds in Nuzhat al-Nazar: “This is the type called riwayat al-aqran (transmission between contemporaries), for in it a narrator relates from his peer.”
(3) MS W reads: “fa-huwa al-mudabbaj.”
(4) The verb “rawa” (reported) is missing in MS Z.
(5) MS W adds the word “huwa” (he/it is).
(6) MS B reads: “wa fihi” (and it includes).
(7) MS H has “kathira” (numerous), which is erroneous.
(8) MS E reads: “wa minhum” (and among them), which is erroneous.
(9) The phrase “wa-minhu: man rawa ʿan abihi ʿan jaddihi” (and among them is one who reported from his father, from his grandfather) is omitted in MS Z.
(10) MS E reads: “fa-in” (for if).
(11) MS W has “yumayyaza” (so that they may be distinguished), and the phrase “wa-lam yatamayaza” (and they were not distinguished) is absent from MS B.
(12) MS Z reads: “fa-binkhidafihi” (by its lowering), which is erroneous.
(13) MS Z reads: “bitabiyyun,” a scribal corruption.