Mu'an'an (chain linked by 'from')

المعنعن (العنعنة)

A mu'an'an chain is one phrased 'so-and-so from so-and-so'. Some counted it as mursal or broken until its connection was shown; the sound view acted upon, for Ibn al-Salah, is that it is connected provided the narrators are known to have met and are free of tadlis, and Ibn Abd al-Barr almost claimed the hadith imams' consensus on it. In the preface to his Sahih Muslim held contemporaneity and the possibility of meeting enough and rejected the requirement of proven meeting, a requirement said to be that of Ali ibn al-Madini and al-Bukhari. Scholars also differed over whether 'that so-and-so said' (anna) equals 'from' (an).

Summary

A mu'an'an chain is one phrased "so-and-so from (an) so-and-so"; Ibn al-Salah treats it in the first appendix to the type of mu'dal. ¹ Some counted it as mursal or broken until its connection was shown by another route; the sound view acted upon, for him, is that it belongs to the connected chain, held by most hadith imams and used by those who stipulated soundness in their collections. ¹

Two conditions

Ibn Abd al-Barr almost claimed the consensus of the hadith imams on this, and Abu Amr al-Dani claimed the consensus of the transmitters — on condition that the narrators linked by "from" are known to have met one another and are free of the taint of tadlis; then it is taken as outwardly connected unless the contrary appears. ¹ Ibn al-Salah notes that in his own time "from" had come to be widely used for transmission by licence, which does not remove it from the connected category. ²

Meeting or contemporaneity?

"That so-and-so said"

Scholars differed whether a narrator's "that (anna) so-and-so said such-and-such" counts like "from" for presuming connection once meeting is established: Malik is reported to have treated them as the same, Ahmad as different. ² Ibn Abd al-Barr reported that most scholars treat them alike, since what counts is meeting, sitting together and hearing, provided there is no tadlis, not the particles; he reported al-Bardiji's view that anna implies a break until hearing is shown, and called it meaningless. ² ⁵ Ibn al-Salah found the same position in Ya'qub ibn Shayba's Musnad, which treated "from Ammar" as connected but "that Ammar passed by the Prophet ﷺ" as mursal. ⁵

The general rule and its limits

Abu Bakr al-Sayrafi generalised: whoever is known to have heard from a person and narrates from him is presumed to have heard what he relates until it is known otherwise; Ibn al-Salah notes he meant this of those not known for tadlis, and that the argument is that otherwise the narrator would be guilty of tadlis, which is presumed absent. ⁴ He adds that the rule does not carry over, after the early generations, to authors' phrasing such as "so-and-so mentioned that so-and-so said". ³ ⁶

Opinions on the question

First opinion · Sunni tradition (the museum's frame) · Sunni: proven meeting (said to be Ali ibn al-Madini and al-Bukhari)Main reference

chains with "from" require that the narrators are proven to have met; Ibn al-Salah notes that the view Muslim rejected is said to be that of the leading masters of the field, Ali ibn al-Madini, al-Bukhari and others. ³

More opinions (2)

Sunni tradition (the museum's frame) · Sunni: possible meeting through contemporaneity (Muslim)Main reference

in the preface to his Sahih Muslim attacked some contemporaries for requiring proof of meeting, called it an invented view, and held that the common, agreed view is that it suffices to establish that the two lived in the same period, even if no report says they met; Ibn al-Salah comments: what Muslim said needs reconsideration. ³

Sunni tradition (the museum's frame) · Sunni: stricter conditionsMain reference

Abu Amr the Qur'an reader required that the narrator be known for narrating from him; Abu al-Hasan al-Qabisi that he clearly overlapped with him; and Abu al-Muzaffar al-Sam'ani that they kept long company. ⁴ ³

Sources

Ulum al-Hadith by Ibn al-Salah — edited and annotated by Nur al-Din Itr (edition not stated in the scan) , p. 61

Ulum al-Hadith by Ibn al-Salah — edited and annotated by Nur al-Din Itr (edition not stated in the scan) , p. 62

Ulum al-Hadith by Ibn al-Salah — edited and annotated by Nur al-Din Itr (edition not stated in the scan) , p. 66

Ulum al-Hadith by Ibn al-Salah — edited and annotated by Nur al-Din Itr (edition not stated in the scan) , p. 65

Ulum al-Hadith by Ibn al-Salah — edited and annotated by Nur al-Din Itr (edition not stated in the scan) , p. 63

Ulum al-Hadith by Ibn al-Salah — edited and annotated by Nur al-Din Itr (edition not stated in the scan) , p. 67

The concealed report (mudallas) and the hidden loose attribution (mursal khafi)

Ibn Hajar distinguishes the evident drop, known when narrator and teacher never met, from the hidden drop that only expert critics detect. The hidden drop includes concealment (tadlis), a narrator transmitting from someone he is known to have met what he did not hear from him, in a form that could imply hearing, and the hidden loose attribution (mursal khafi), a contemporary transmitting from someone he is not known to have met. From an upright concealer only reports with explicit statements of hearing are accepted.