Criticism of Hadith thus provides "certainty of knowledge" of what Muhammad said, in fact it is only the much rarer subset of sahih -- "mutawatir" hadith -- that provide certain knowledge. "Mutawatir" means the report "of a large number of narrators whose agreement upon a lie is inconceivable. This condition must be met in the entire chain from the origin of the report to the very end." However, according to Wael Hallaq, "the bulk of hadith with which the traditionists dealt, and on the basis of which the Jurists derived the law" were known as "ahad" — i.e. non-"mutawatir" hadith; Hadith without "textually
Introduction to the Science of Hadith the earlier scholars as appropriate and mostly sufficed with conclusions drawn from them and then specifying or clarifying a definition. The definitions Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ used to describe the individual terms of hadith terminology were largely in accordance with the views of the majority of hadith specialists. In some instances, he would mention an undisputed opinion, before mentioning one that was widely accepted and then describing the difference. He would generally precede his critique of differing opinions by saying: "I say". For the primary terms described, he mentioned an example to illustrate that definition. His goal in doing so was to