Glossary of Technical Terms in Al-Faḍlī‟s “Introduction to Hadith”

adā’: conveyance, denoting a reporter‟s narration of the tradition to another

reporter who takes if from him.
„adālah: veracity. See Introduction.
veracious – lexically means just, equitable and reliable. In
jurisprudence, this designates a person of irreproachable reputation
and veracity whose testimony is valid. See Introduction and chapter
on the veracity of the reporter for a detailed explanation.
„adl: equitable.
āḥād or khabar al-wāḥid: solitary report – refers to any report that is not mutawātir.
Akhbārīs: Shī‟ī traditionists whose legal and ritual understanding was primarily
based on the literal traditions of the Imams.
„ālim (pl. „ulamā’): a scholar well versed in the knowledge of the Qur‟an, the traditions,
and Islamic jurisprudence.
Āmālī: dictations.
„Āmmah: majority, or commoners, referring to the Ahl al-Sunnah.
Aḧḥāb al-ijmā’: since ijmā’ in Arabic means unanimous agreement or consensus, the
phrase means „the agreed-upon companions‟, denoting their
unanimously agreed upon reliability. The phrase denotes eighteen
reporters from among the companions of the Imams (pbut).
athar (pl. āthār): report of a companion, though Shī‟ahs do not accept these as ḥadīth,
so it is used synonymously with khabar. See chapter on ḥadīth
terminology.
ḍa’īf: weak – a tradition that does not fit into the categories of authentic,
good or dependable. It is therefore a „weak‟ tradition.
ḍa’īf al-munjabar: the reinforced weak report.
Dirāyat al-Ḥadīth: critical and contextual study and criticism of traditions.
fāsiq: corrupt – antithesis of „ādil, according to some scholars, or
synonymous with kāfir (disbeliever) according to others. See chapter
on veracity.
fatwā: juridical or legal verdict pronounced by a jurisconsult.
fiqh: science of jurisprudence.
ghālī (pl. ghulāt): extremist sect, see ghalw below.
Ghalw: extremism – refers to certain sects‟ exaggeration and overestimation
of the vicegerent of Allah, or their extreme neglect in
underestimating and degrading him below his decreed status. It also
refers to reports that were narrated by Christian converts to pollute
ḥadīth literature with messianic thought.
ḥadīth (pl. aḥādīth): tradition or report, specifically the traditions of the Prophet (pbuh)
and the infallible Imams (pbut), i.e. their sayings, actions and tacit
approvals of others‟ actions, or the narrations of these. Throughout
the course of this book, I have used the word „ḥadīth’ to refer to the
bulk of tradition literature and the general concept, and the word
„tradition‟ or „report‟ to refer to individual narrations. Ḥadīth as a
concept is interchangeable with „Sunnah’.
ḥāfiẓ: is a term that recurs throughout the book, usually prefixed or suffixed
to someone‟s name. It literally means „memorizer‟ and is used as a
title in ḥadīth terminology to describe a scholar who has an excellent
memory and has memorized a great number of traditions.

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ḥalāl: permissible.
ḥarām: prohibited.
ḥasan: good – a tradition where all the transmitters in its chain are imāmī
and veracious, or some of them are imāmī and commendable and the
rest are non-imāmī but commendable.
i’lām: declaration – one of the means of receiving traditions, where the
teacher would declare and inform the student that this book or this
tradition is his report or a result of his hearing a certain report from
someone, without actually saying words to the effect of: „narrate on
my authority‟ or „I permit you to narrate it‟.
ijāzab: permission and authorization to narrate traditions on someone‟s
authority.
ijmā’: legal consensus of scholars.
ijtihād: independent jurisprudential investigation when deducing legal rulings
from sharī‟ah sources. Also refers to a scholar‟s personal judgment
when investigating matters.
„ilm: literally means knowledge, but in this field refers to the legal
knowledge of traditions and jurisprudence. Also refers to the
„certitude „ attained about the report‟s origin.
„Ilm al-Dirāyah: the science of critical study of the content of the ḥadīth, i.e. the scince
of Islamic legal knowledge, which includes the narrators of a ḥadīth,
its text, its chain of transmission, the manner of transmission, etc.
This term is often interchargeable with our tile, „Uṣūl al-Ḥadīth‟
(principles of ḥadīth).
„Ilm al-Rijāl: biographical studies – the science of h reporters in which the
circumstances of reporters are analyzed and classified.
„Ilm Uḧūl al-Fiqh: the science of the principles of jurisprudence.
imāmī: Shī‟a Ithna „Asharī or a follower of the twelve Imams, who adheres
to the Ja‟fari school of jurisprudence.
imlā: dictation of traditions.
irsāl: the act of „forwarding‟ traditions on the authority of the Ma’ḧūm,
without mentioning the intermediary source(s) in between.
„iḧābah: in Shī‟ī sources there are frequent references to the consensus of al-
„iḧābah, which points to those of the Imam‟s companions who were
invested with the authority of giving fatwā. „iḧābah „the body of
scholars‟, by practicing the binding authority of ijmā’, determined the
course and character of Shī‟ī sectarianism. This word is synonymous
with the word ẓā’ifah.
isnād or sanad: chain of transmission.
Isrā’īliyyāt: traditions and legends narrated by Jewish converts to Islam, which
infiltrated and perverted ḥadīth literature with concepts and ideas that
were not originally present therein. These traditions are rife in Sunnī
ḥadīth, and have penetrated into their most sacred ḥadīth collections,
„the authentic (ḧaḥīḥ) canonical collections‟.
Jāmī’: comprehensive compilation of traditions encompassing traditions on
all matters of religion from juristic matters to contracts and
interpretation of the Qur‟an, as well as historical accounts.
jarḥ wa ta’dīl: defamation and authentication of reporters.
khabar (pl. akhbār): report. See chapter ḥadīth terminology.
khabar al-wāḥid: linked solitary report. See chapter on solitary reports.
khabar al-wāhid al-mqrūn: unlinked solitary report. See chapter on solitary reports.

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kitābah ghayr al-maqrūn: writing down – one of the means of receiving traditions, whereby the
teacher would write down his tradition, either in his own hand or by
ordering someone else to write it, then send it to the reporter who has
requested it.
ma’ḧūm: infallible – referring specifically to the Prophet (pbuh) and the Imams
(pbut).
makrūh: undesirable act.
marfū’: „traceable‟ – refers to any tradition that can be traced back to a
Ma’ḧūm, regardless of the continuity in its chain of transmission.
marja’ al-taqlīd: grand jurisconsult who is the most learned in the field of
jurisprudence and extrapolation of legal rulings, and has the legal
capacity to pronounce juristic verdicts (fatwa).
mashhūr: famous. The word mustafīd implies extensiveness and abundance on
all the levels, whereas mashhūr implies general fame and prevalence,
not necessarily attained on all the levels.
matn: content or text of a tradition.
mawḍū’: fabricated, invented, forged.
mu’allaq: suspended – describes a chain of transmission in which the names of
some or all of the reporters have been intentionally omitted by the
author of a compilation for brevity, and subsequently appended at the
back of the book.
muḍmar: ambiguous – refers to a chain of transmission in which the name of
the Ma’ḧūm is not mentions, but rather a personal pronoun referring
to him, such as „he‟. We will refer to this type of chain as
„ambiguous‟. Its opposite is muḧarraḥ („explicit‟), where the name of
the Ma’ḧūm is mentioned frankly. This is also referred to as maqẓū’
(‟disconnected‟).
muḥaddith: traditionist; jurist who transmits traditions.
mujtahid: a jurisconsult who attempts to deduce legal rulings from the sources
according to a certain discipline.
mukallaf: legally responsible person, i.e. one who has reached the Islamic legal
age of maturity, and thus has become responsible for performing
Islamic duties.
munāwalah: handing over. This is when the teacher would hand over (give) his
book of traditions to his student or to whoever wishes to narrate on
his authority.
mursal: hurried – a tradition whose complete chain of transmission is
unknown, i.e. the names of one or more of its narrators are missing or
unknown. The word „mursal’ literally means „forwarded on‟ because
often the tradition is forwarded on by a Follower, missing out the
name of the Companion who narrated it to him.
muḧarrah: explicit – refers to a chain of transmission in which the Ma’ḧūm is
explicitly mentioned by name. This is also referred to as mawḧūl
(‟connected‟).
Musnad (pl. Masānīd): refers to works of ḥadīth categorized according to the first narrator in
the chain after the Prophet (pbuh) (i.e. a Companion).
musnad: supported – a tradition supported by a known chain of transmission
that goes all the way back to the Prophet (pbuh).
mustafīd: extensively narrated.
mustaḥab: legally recommended act.

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mutawātir: a tradition from the Prophet (pbuh) or an infallible Imam, repeatedly
and widely narrated in an uninterrupted sequence, through successive
reliable narrators. In the absence of a single English word to express
this very specific meaning, this has been left as mutawātir in the text.
See Introduction.
muwaththaq: dependable – a tradition in which some or all of the transmitters in its
chain are non-imāmī, but it has been established that they are
dependable by our scholars standards.
naql: the act of transmission.
naḧḧ: textually explicit legal statement.
qarīnah (pl. qarā’in): external evidence linked to a report, which proves the soundness of
its origin.
qawī: strong. Classification of ḥadīth similar to muwaththaq; it refers to a
tradition transmitted by an imāmī who has been neither commended
nor criticized in the biographical dictionaries.
qirā’ah: reading – one of the means of receiving traditions, whereby the
student would read out his teacher‟s tradition back to him, for
verification.
qiyās: analogical reasoning.
Rāfiḍah: dissenters – a term used to describe certain extremist sects because of
their desertion of the Imam and rejection of his statements.
rāwī (f. rāwiyah, pl. rāwūn): narrator, reporter.
rāwiyyah: reporter of many traditions.
Rijāl works: biographical dictionaries of Muslim dignitaries and narrators of
traditions.
riwāyah: narration or transmission.
Ḧaḥābī (pl. Ḧaḥābah): „Companion‟ refers to the Companions of the Prophet (pbuh). In
earlier times the term was restricted to his close friends who had
close contact the believers who had seen him, even if only for a brief
moment or at an early age.
Ḧāḥib(pl. Aḧḥāb): Companion – as a general term used to refer to Companions of
Imams, of other people and of the Prophet.
ḧaḥīfah (pl. ḧuḥuf): literally means journal or manuscript, and here refers to small
personal ḥadīth collections of people who lived at the time of the
Prophet (pbuh).
Ḧaḥīḥ (pl. Siḥāḥ): refers to works of ḥadīth compiled to include only authentic
traditions from the Prophet (pbuh).
ḧaḥīḥ: authentic – tradition in which all the transmitters in its chain are
imāmī and veracious. This is the highest grade of ḥadīth.
samā’: hearing – one of the means of receiving traditions, in which the
reporter would hear the tradition and subsequently learn it, by heart
or from a book.
sanad or isnād: chain of transmission.
shādh: unusual tradition.
Sunan: work of traditions that is mainly to do with matters of jurisprudence
that a Muslim encounters in everyday live.
ta’wīl: allegorical interpretation of the Qur‟an.
Tābi’ī (pl. Tābi’ūn): „Follower‟ or „Successor‟ – refers to the second generation of
Muslims who came after the Companions, who did not know the
Prophet (pbuh) but who knew his Companions.

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taḥammul: reception – refers to the reporter‟s receipt of the tradition from
another reporter who related it to him, and the hearer‟s subsequent
learning of it, whether by heart or by use of a book or written record.
taḥdīth: narration of traditions.
taqiyyah: dissimulation of one‟s faith when faced with a life threatening
situation.
taqlīd: the legal imitation or following of a mujtahid – a veracious legal
authority in matters of jurisprudence.
tarjīḥ: preponderance – a field of study within the science of ḥadīth in
which contradictory reports are weighed up and evaluated in terms of
their authenticity in order to determine which of them prevails over
the rest.
tawātur: recurrent multiple successive transmission, i.e. the path of a
mutawātir report.
thiqah: reliable.
Uḧūl (sing. Asl): the Arabic term for books in which Shī‟ī ḥadīth scholars at the time
of the Imams recorded the traditions directly received by them. There
were four hundred such source collections, termed al-Uḧūl al-
Arba’umi’a, in which uḧūl literally means „principles‟,
„fundamentals‟ or „roots‟, to indicate that they are a primary source
for scholars to refer to and rely upon.
uḧūl al-fiqh: principles of interpreting Islamic law, namely: the Qur‟an, the
Sunnah of the Prophet and the Ahl al-Bayt (pbut), reason („aql) and
legal consensus.
Uḧūlīs: the rational segment of imāmī jurists who favored the incorporation
of the semantic-exegetical methodology in jurisprudence.
wājib: obligatory.
waḧiyyah: will – one of the means of receiving traditions, whereby a reporter
would instruct a person, before a journey or his death, to narrate his
book of traditions or some other traditions on his authority.
wijādah: finding traditions – one of the means of receiving traditions. This has
been defined in ḥadīth terminology as: obtaining knowledge from a
manuscript, without having heard it (samā’) without having been
given it munāwalah) and without permission to transmit it.
zann: valid conjecture or speculation of a jurist about the soundness of a
report‟s origin, which does not entail more than a probability.