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Do the mursal hadiths support one another absolutely, such as the hadiths narrated from Al-Hasan Al-Basri and Abdullah Al-Bahi regarding the Prophet's ﷺ stomach swelling after his death, making the hadith sound (hasan) despite its reprehensibility (nukara)?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The answer summarizes the conditions for strengthening a mursal hadith according to Imam Al-Shafi'i. These conditions pertain to the mursil (the one who narrates the mursal hadith), such as that he should not narrate from an unknown or criticized person, that he should not contradict the huffaz (master memorizers of hadith), and that he should be among the senior Tabi'in (Successors). There are also conditions pertaining to the mursal report itself, such as that it should be supported by something indicating its authenticity, like being narrated with an isnad (chain of narration) by huffaz from another route, or being in agreement with another mursal report, or a saying of a Companion, or the consensus of the people of knowledge.

It then concludes that the aforementioned report is weak and munkar (denounced), and it is not strengthened by its transmission through two mursal routes because they do not meet the conditions for strengthening. The mursal report from Al-Hasan Al-Basri is weak because he narrates from untrustworthy individuals, and the mursal report from Abdullah Al-Bahi is mudtarib (shaky/contradictory), in addition to the munkar nature of the text itself, which necessitates rejecting the report.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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