Mursal (hadith)

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Part of a series on the Science of hadith
Terminology
History of Hadith — ... Ilm ar-Rijal — ... Narrators of hadith — ...
Terminology
Isnad — chain of narrators Matn — hadith text Riwayah — narration
technical terms
Musnad — supported Mursal — hurried Ahaad — single narrator Munqati — broken muttasil — uninterrupted isnad Gharib — strange/rare Shadhdh — irregular Munkar — denounced/rejected Mudraj — interpolated Da'if jiddan — very weak Isra'iliyat
Regarding authenticity
Mutawatir — agreed upon Sahih — authentic Hasan — fair Da'if — weak Mawdo — fabricated Mudtarib — shaky
Other
Sharh — comments Hadith collection This box: view • talk • edit

Mursal (lit. hurried) is an Islamic term used in the science of Hadith.

1 Definition
2 Sunni view
3 Shi'a view
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Definition

If the Sahaba link between a Successor and Muhammad is missing, the hadith is mursal (hurried), e.g., when a Successor says, “The Prophet said ...”. ^[1]

[edit] Sunni view

Since Sunnis believe in the uprightness of all Sahaba, they do not view it as a necessary problem if a Successor does not mention what Sahaba he received the hadith from.

This means that if a hadith has an acceptable chain all the way to a Successor, and the successor does not mentions the Sahaba, the whole isnad is considered acceptable.

However, there are different views in some cases: If the Successor is a young one and it is probable that he omitted an elder Successor who in turn reported form a Sahaba.

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. In fact, he saves you from further research."

Others reject the mursal of younger Successor ^[1].