Munqati' (broken chain)

In his Muqaddima Ibn al-Salah makes "knowing the munqati'" the tenth type of the hadith sciences, and says that hadith scholars and others hold several views on it and on how it differs from the mursal. ¹

Al-Hakim's view: mursal is reserved for the Successor, and munqati' is a chain in which, before the Successor is reached, a narrator relates from someone above him he did not hear, the missing link being unnamed and not even alluded to; it also covers a chain that names one of its narrators only vaguely, as "a man" or "a shaykh". ² For the first he cites a hadith of Abd al-Razzaq from al-Thawri from Abu Ishaq from Zayd ibn Yuthay' from Hudhayfa on entrusting authority to Abu Bakr: it looks connected but is broken in two places, since Abd al-Razzaq heard it only from al-Nu'man ibn Abi Shayba al-Janadi from al-Thawri, and al-Thawri only from Sharik from Abu Ishaq. ^{2 3} For the second he cites Abu al-Ala' ibn Abd Allah ibn al-Shikhkhir "from two men" from Shaddad ibn Aws (may God be pleased with him) on a supplication in prayer. ³

Ibn Abd al-Barr's view: mursal is reserved for the Successors, while munqati' covers it and everything else whose chain is not connected, whether attributed to the Prophet ﷺ or to someone else. ³

Al-Khatib's view: munqati' is like mursal, both covering every unconnected chain; Ibn al-Salah finds this closest and notes that groups of jurists and others adopted it, although in usage munqati' mostly describes what narrators after the Successors relate from Companions, such as "Malik from Ibn Umar". ³

An odd view: al-Khatib reports from some hadith scholars that munqati' is a saying or act of a Successor or someone later, stopping at him; Ibn al-Salah calls this odd and far-fetched. ⁴

Next in Ibn al-Salah comes the mu'dal, a name for a special kind of munqati': every mu'dal is munqati', but not every munqati' is mu'dal. ⁴ The whole topic bears on the requirement of a connected chain for a sound hadith.