Individual terms distinguish between those hadith considered rightfully attributed to their source or detail the faults of those of dubious provenance.
These terms specify whether a narration is attributed to Muhammad, a companion, a successor or a latter historical figure.
This provides confirmation that the hadith is authentically attributed to its source at a level above reasonable doubt.
In contrast, an ahaad hadith is a narration the chain of which has not reached a number sufficient to qualify as mutawatir.
According to him a hadith may be classified as gharib for one of the following three reasons: There are differing views as to the level of knowledge achieved by each of the two primary categories mutawatir and ahaad.
"[5] Ibn al-Salah said,[6] "Hadith, in the view of scholars of this discipline, fall into the divisions of 'sound' (ṣaḥīḥ), 'fair' (ḥasan), and 'weak' (ḍaʻīf)."
While these divisions are further broken down into sub-categories each with their own terminology, the final outcome is essentially to determine whether a particular hadith is ṣaḥīḥ or ḍaʻīf.
"[7] Ibn al-Mulaqqin counted the various types as being "more than eighty"[8] and al-Suyuti included ninety-three in Tadrib al-Rawi.
Each type is an independent discipline in and of itself and were a student to devote his life to them he would not reach their end.
"[6] Ibn Hajar defines a hadith that is ṣaḥīḥ lidhātihi ("ṣaḥīḥ in and of itself") as a singular narration (ahaad; see below) conveyed by a trustworthy, completely competent person, either in his ability to memorize or to preserve what he wrote, with a muttaṣil ("connected") isnād ("chain of narration") that contains neither a serious concealed flaw (ʻillah, Arabic:علة) nor irregularity (shādhdh).
"[10][full citation needed] Ibn Hajar's definitions indicate that there are five conditions to be met for a particular hadith to be considered ṣaḥīḥ: A number of books were authored in which the author stipulated the inclusion of ṣaḥīḥ hadith alone.
Discontinuity in the beginning of the isnād, from the end of the collector of that hadith, is referred to as muʻallaq (معلق meaning "suspended").
The opinion held by Imam Malik and all Maliki jurists is that the mursal of a trustworthy person is valid, just like a musnad hadith.
This view has been developed to such an extreme that to some of them, the mursal is even better than the musnad, based on the following reasoning: "The one who reports a musnad hadith leaves you with the names of the reporters for further investigation and scrutiny, whereas the one who narrates by way of irsal (the absence of the link between the successor and the Prophet), being a knowledgeable and trustworthy person himself, has already done so and found the hadith to be sound.
[19] Mu‘dal (معضل, Muʻḍal; meaning: problematic) describes the omission of two or more consecutive narrators from the isnād.
Traditionists as late as Ahmad used to simply label any hadith of a weak reporter as munkar.
[22] Mudtarib (مضطرب, Muḍṭarib; meaning: shaky) – According to Ibn Kathir, if reporters disagree about a particular shaikh, or about some other points in the isnād or the matn, in such a way that none of the opinions can be preferred over the others, and thus there is irreconcilable uncertainty, such a hadith is called muḍṭarib.
Al-Dhahabi defines mawḍūʻ as a hadith of which the text contradicts established norms of Muhammad's sayings or of which the reporters include a liar.
Examples include: As in any Islamic discipline, there is a rich history of literature describing the principles and fine points of hadith sciences.
Ibn Hajar provides a summation of this development with the following: Works authored in the terminology of the people of hadith have become plentiful from the Imams, both old and contemporary: