The trustworthy narrator's addition (ziyadat al-thiqa)

Ziyadat al-thiqa is a word or phrase in the text or chain of a hadith that a trustworthy narrator alone adds, as the editor Nur al-Din 'Itr defines it; Ibn Hajar in [[work/nuzhat-al-nazar|Nuzhat al-Nazar]] discusses additions to the text in particular. ²

Ibn Hajar holds that an addition by a narrator of sound or good hadith is accepted unless it contradicts the report of someone more reliable who did not mention it. Either the addition does not conflict with the report of those who omitted it, and then it is accepted without qualification, since it counts as a separate hadith that a trustworthy narrator alone transmits; or it conflicts with it, so that accepting it means rejecting the other report, and then the two are weighed and the stronger accepted and the weaker rejected. ³

The editor points to a third class between these two, such as an added word that restricts a general statement or qualifies an unrestricted one, and reads Ibn Hajar as accepting it, since accepting it does not entail rejecting the other report; he attributes acceptance to al-Shafi'i, Malik and Ahmad and rejection to Abu Hanifa, and gives as an example Nu'aym al-Mujmir's addition that Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) recited the basmala aloud when Nu'aym prayed behind him. ⁴

Ibn Hajar notes that a group of scholars is known for accepting additions without distinction, and says this is inconsistent with the method of the hadith scholars, who require that a sound report not be irregular (shadhdh) and define irregularity as a trustworthy narrator contradicting a more reliable one. ⁴

He says that what is reported of the early hadith imams, such as 'Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi, Yahya al-Qattan, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, Yahya ibn Ma'in, 'Ali ibn al-Madini, al-Bukhari, Abu Zur'a, Abu Hatim, al-Nasa'i and al-Daraqutni, is the weighing of reports in the matter of additions and elsewhere, and that none of them is known to have accepted additions without qualification. ⁵

He finds it stranger still that many Shafi'is accept additions without qualification when al-Shafi'i's own text points the other way: al-Shafi'i treated a narrator's report being shorter than the hafiz's report as evidence of his care, and anything else as damaging to his hadith, which includes additions; had he accepted additions without qualification, they would not have damaged their transmitter. ⁶

See also the irregular and the preserved report.

Overview

"Knowing the additions of trustworthy narrators and their ruling" is the sixteenth type in Ibn al-Salah, who calls it a subtle art worth attention and notes that Abu Bakr ibn Ziyad al-Naysaburi, Abu Nu'aym al-Jurjani and Abu al-Walid al-Qurashi were known for knowing the legally significant extra wordings in hadiths. ⁷

The views

Ibn al-Salah's division

Ibn al-Salah divides what a trustworthy narrator relates alone into three. First, what contradicts and conflicts with what the other trustworthy narrators relate: it is rejected, as with the shadhdh. Second, what involves no conflict at all with others' narrations, such as a whole hadith that a trustworthy narrator alone relates: it is accepted, and al-Khatib claimed the scholars agree on it. Third, what lies between, such as an extra phrase in a hadith that the other narrators of it omit. ⁸

An example of the third is Malik's hadith from Nafi' from Ibn Umar that zakat al-fitr is due "from every free person or slave, male or female, from among the Muslims": al-Tirmidhi noted that Malik alone among the trustworthy added "from among the Muslims", while Ubayd Allah ibn Umar, Ayyub and others relate it without, yet several imams, among them al-Shafi'i and Ahmad, adopted it. ^{8 9} Another is "the earth was made a place of prayer for us, and its soil was made pure for us", where Abu Malik Sa'd ibn Tariq al-Ashja'i alone adds "its soil"; this resembles the first kind, since the group's version is general and the solitary one specific, and the second, since there is no conflict. ⁹

Connected and mursal, raised and stopped

Closely related is a hadith that some trustworthy narrators relate as mursal and others as connected, such as "no marriage without a guardian", which Isra'il ibn Yunus and others relate from his grandfather Abu Ishaq from Abu Burda from Abu Musa, connected, while Sufyan al-Thawri and Shu'ba relate it from Abu Ishaq from Abu Burda from the Prophet ﷺ, mursal. ¹⁰ Al-Khatib reported that most hadith scholars give the ruling to the mursal version, some to the majority, some to the better memory, and some to whoever connected it if he is upright and precise — which al-Khatib said is the correct view. ^{10 11 12} Ibn al-Salah endorsed this in law and legal theory and noted that al-Bukhari, asked about "no marriage without a guardian", ruled for those who connected it, saying "an addition from a trustworthy narrator is accepted", even though those who gave it as mursal were Shu'ba and Sufyan, mountains of memory and precision. ¹¹ Likewise when some raise a hadith to the Prophet and others stop it at a Companion, the sounder ruling goes to the trustworthy narrator's addition of connection or raising, since he affirms and the other is silent — and even if the other denied it, the affirmer comes first because he knew what the other missed. ¹¹ Ibn al-Salah grants that connected and mursal versions involve a kind of conflict, since giving a hadith as mursal is a kind of criticism and preferring it resembles preferring censure to vindication; the answer is that censure is preferred for its added knowledge, and here the added knowledge lies with the one who connected. ¹³