Connectedness of the isnad and proven hearing

The continuity of the chain is a condition, according to the majority of scholars of hadith, for accepting a chain as connected: that each narrator's hearing from his shaykh, or his meeting with him, is established. Mere contemporaneity and the use of 'an'ana ("from") do not suffice. ¹

Ibn Rajab presents this principle in the takhrij of the hadith "Fear God wherever you are." He relates that al-Bukhari, his teacher Ali ibn al-Madini, Abu Zur'a, Abu Hatim, and others hold that the hadith is connected only if the meeting is established. He reports that Ahmad's statements point to this, and that al-Shafi'i stated it explicitly in al-Risala. This, in his view, differs from the opinion of Muslim. ¹

Ibn Rajab applies the principle to Maymun ibn Abi Shabib, the transmitter of the hadith from Abu Dhar and Mu'adh. He relates from al-Fallas that in his narrations from the Companions there is no "I heard"; from Abu Hatim that his narration from Abu Dhar and Aisha is not connected; and from Abu Dawud that he did not meet Aisha. He notes that al-Bukhari did not include anything of his in his Sahih, and Muslim included him only in his introduction. ¹

For this reason Ibn Rajab held al-Hakim's authentication of the hadith as meeting the conditions of the two Shaykhs to be an error from these two angles, and he relates al-Daraqutni's preference for the chain that is mursal (broken at the Companion). ¹

See the chain of transmission.