What is Ziyaadat al Thiqah?

“Ziyadat al-Thiqah” refers to additions in a hadith’s chain or text from a trustworthy and accurate narrator, uncorroborated by parallel transmitters of the same report. In Arabic this means:

ما يزيده الراوي العدل الضابط، في سند الحديث، أو متنه، على من شاركه في رواية الحديث نفسه

“What an upright fully-memorized narrator appends to a hadith’s chain or content beyond counterparts sharing that hadith.”

There are five types of Ziyadat al-Thiqah:

1. Connecting a disconnected (Mursal) report
2. Elevating a Companion-attributed (Mawquf) report to the Prophet
3. Elevating an interrupted (Maqtu’) report to the Prophet
4. Inserting an extra reporter in an connected chain
5. Adding to the textual content

Later scholars permitted such additions unconditionally. But others like Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi only allow them if not contradicting a stronger narrator’s version.

The most cautious view is to verify the addition, gathering all routes to identify irregularities, especially for prolific scholars. The safest approach remains confirming additions against parallel transmissions first.