be so severe in the individual isnads of those reports. Imam al-Nawawi says in al-Taqrib (p. 58, with al-Suyuti’s commentary Tadrib): “If a hadith is transmitted through weak routes, that alone does not necessarily raise it to the rank of hasan (sound). What is upgraded is a report whose weakness lies in the poor memory of an upright but inaccurate narrator: if it comes by another route, that deficiency is removed and it becomes hasan. The same is true when its weakness is due to being mursal; that defect is removed when it comes by another route.” I add: that second route must either be musnad (fully connected) or, if also mursal, possess a sound chain up to the transmitter and come from transmitters other than the teachers of the first mursal. In that case one may be confident that the two paths are effectively two isnads reaching a Companion—or two different Companions—so that each supports the other. If either of these conditions is lacking—if the second mursal’s chain is weak, or if it is sound but we do not know that its teachers differ from the first—then the hadith is not strengthened, for both mursal routes may trace back to a single narrator who is the common shaykh of both routes, rendering the report isolated. This is what al-Nawawi ﵀ means in his discussion of the mursal, after noting that the majority of hadith scholars, al-Shafi‘i, many jurists, and the usul scholars all deem a mursal weak. Al-Hakim reports the same from Ibn al-Musayyab and Malik, as cited in Tadrib. Al-Nawawi (p. 67) says: “If the origin of a mursal is verified by its coming through another route that is musnad, or mursal from someone who received hadith from other than the transmitters of the first route, then it is sound. This in turn establishes the soundness of the first mursal; and should the two sound routes conflict with another sound hadith, we prefer them when reconciliation is impossible.” I say: The condition signalled by al-Nawawi in the phrase “by its coming…” is indispensable, for without it the soundness of a mursal cannot be ascertained. Once this is understood, it becomes plain that Ustadh Mawdudi did not observe