Why does the wording of the same hadith differ between narrations?

Most such differences come from riwayah bi'l-ma'na, narration by meaning: the majority of scholars permitted a narrator who fully commands Arabic and grasps the intended sense to convey the meaning of what he heard when the exact wording had escaped him, while transmitting the precise words remains better, and is required of anyone not qualified to paraphrase. This is why one narration says "he صلى الله عليه وسلم commanded us to do such-and-such" while another gives his actual words, and why lengths and phrasings vary between al-Bukhari and Muslim for a single event. Other differences arise simply because the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم said the same thing on more than one occasion, or because one narrator abridged what another reported in full. He صلى الله عليه وسلم still urged exactness: "May Allah gladden a man who hears something from us and conveys it as he heard it, for perhaps the one it is conveyed to grasps it better than the one who heard it." The Quran is an entirely different case: it is transmitted verbatim by mass transmission, no paraphrase is ever permitted, and Allah Himself guaranteed its preservation.

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