And if he claims to have evidence for what he asserts that can be used as proof, he is asked: What is that evidence?

The reader: "And if he claims to have evidence for what he asserts that can be used as proof, he is asked: What is that evidence? If he says: I said it because I found that the narrators of reports, both in the past and the present, narrate a hadith from one another without having met them or ever heard anything from them. When I saw them permit narrating hadiths among themselves in this manner via *mursal* transmission without direct hearing, and since *mursal* reports are not considered proof in the fundamental view of us and the scholars of hadith, I was compelled by the cause I described to investigate the direct hearing of the narrator of every report from his source. If I find evidence of his direct hearing from him for even the smallest thing, then all that he narrates from him is established for me. If I fail to find that, I suspend the report, and it is not a place of proof for me due to the possibility of *mursal* transmission in it. It is then said to him: If the cause for you weakening the report and not using it as proof is the possibility of *mursal* transmission in it, then you are obligated not to establish a connected chain until you see direct hearing in it from its beginning to its end. This is because the hadith that reaches us with the chain of Hisham ibn Urwah, from his father, from Aisha, we know with certainty that Hisham heard from his father, and his father heard from Aisha, just as we know that Aisha heard from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him). It is possible that if Hisham does not say in a report he narrates from his father, "I heard" or "he informed me," that there was another person between him and his father in that report who informed him of it from his father, and he did not hear it from his father, because he wanted to narrate it as *mursal* and not attribute it to the one from whom he heard it. And just as this is possible in Hisham from his father, it is also possible in his father from Aisha. And so is every chain of a hadith that does not mention the direct hearing of some of them from others, even if it is generally known that each of them heard from the other extensively. It is possible for each of them to sit down in some of the narration, hear some of his hadiths from someone else about him, then transmit it from him as *mursal* at times without naming the one from whom he heard it, and at times be eager to name the man who carried the hadith from him and leave off the *mursal* transmission. And what we have said of this is found in the hadith literature, widely transmitted, from the practice of the trustworthy hadith scholars and the imams of the people of knowledge."

The Shaykh : But what he said is not necessary. That is, he wants to argue that if he narrates with *'an'anah* (using "from") and he knows that he met and encountered him, then it would be *mursal*, due to the possibility that there was an intermediary between them. It is said: This possibility is not applicable. Why? Because it is known that a narrator using *'an'anah* has a connected hadith, except for one known for *tadlis* (concealment of a defect in the chain). The discussion is about one who is not known for *tadlis*. And on this basis, what he mentioned (may Allah have mercy on him) is not necessary.