Is it sufficient to rely on "From the Companion, who said: The Messenger of Allah said," when preserving hadith, or is it necessary to precisely preserve phrases such as "I heard the Messenger of Allah say," and others?

The Prophetic Sunnah is the second source of legislation, and narrators meticulously preserved it. Hadith is divided into text (matn) and chain of transmission (sanad). The original principle for the text is to transmit it verbatim. However, it is permissible to transmit it by meaning if the narrator is knowledgeable of the words and their connotations. As for the mode of transmission used by the Companion who narrated the hadith: if he explicitly stated that he heard it, then any expression indicating hearing is permissible. If the phrasing allows for the possibility of hearing, such as "The Messenger of Allah said" or "On the authority of the Messenger of Allah," then it is preferable to stick to it without alteration, especially when exercising caution and during scholarly review. One who wishes to memorize a hadith should strive to memorize the text as it is, and should not change a word unless he is knowledgeable of the connotations of the words and what changes the meaning or does not change it.