Salam, Rahma.

Thank you, sister, for you very interesting question, which reflects your interest to know more about the Hadith of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him).

First, I would like to stress that of the four main sources of Shari`ah (Islamic Law), Hadith occupies a place second only to the Qur’an. Hadith enshrines the Sunnah (sayings, deeds, and tacit approval of the Prophet). It follows that Hadith and Sunnah are sometimes names for one and the same thing. I will not go into details in this. I will focus my answer on the development of Hadith.

Teaching of Hadith by the Prophet

During his lifetime, the Prophet used to teach his Sunnah by three methods: verbal, written (dictation to scribes), and practical demonstration.

As far as the first method is concerned, the Prophet used to repeat important things thrice and then listen to what the Companions had learned from him. The second method includes all the letters of the Prophet to kings inviting them to Islam, and to Muslim governors detailing the rules of zakah and other legal matters. Likewise, the Prophet taught his Companions how to perform ablution, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, etc. This represents the third method of teaching the Sunnah by the Prophet.

In this context, I should not forget to highlight in brief the role the Companions played in learning and teaching the Hadith of the Prophet. They used all the three methods applied by the Prophet for teaching the Sunnah. They also committed Hadiths of the Prophet to memory.

Writing Down of the Hadith (Tadwin Al-Hadith)

In Hadith literature, we are faced with hadiths that forbid and others that permit the writing down of hadiths.

Abu Sa`id Al-Khudri reported a hadith that forbids the writing down of hadiths: “Do not write from me anything except the Qur’an and whosoever has written anything from me other the Qur’an should erase it.”

This is the only sound hadith in this regard. Other often-quoted hadiths that forbid the writing down of hadiths are weak and unacceptable. The above mentioned hadith is recorded in Al-Bukhari, and according to him it is the statement of Abu Sa`id Al-Khudri himself. The hadith meant that nothing should be written with the Qur’an on the same sheet, as this might lead to mixing the text of the Qur’an with that of the Hadith. This command was given when the Qur’an was being revealed bit by bit and was yet incomplete.

Another interpretation of the hadith is that it was forbidden to write down hadiths in early days because all attention was to be paid to the Qur’an and its preservation. Then later on, when there was no fear of abandoning the Qur’an, the previous order was abrogated and the Companions were permitted to write down hadiths. On the other hand, we have evidence that the Prophet approved of writing down his hadiths.

We find that many Companions recorded hadiths. For example, `Abdullah ibn `Amr complained to the Prophet that he had a problem in memorizing what he heard from him, so the Prophet told him that he should seek the assistance of his right hand, that is, that he should write it down.

In addition, some fifty Companions and many followers are said to have possessed manuscripts (sahifah plural suhf), which was used as a term to designate compendia of Hadith that emerged during the century before the formation of the classical collections. The original sahifahs have been lost, but a very few copies have survived. An example is the sahifah of Hammam ibn Munabbih, who learned from Abu Hurayrah and from him he wrote his sahifah which contains 138 hadiths. This sahifah is believed to have been written down around the middle of the first century after the Hijrah (seventh century CE).

In the beginning of the second Hijri century, during the reign of `Umar ibn `Abd Al-`Aziz (AH 97-101/715-19 CE) the texts of Hadith were committed to writing. The Sunnah was collected in Syria, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, and Khurasan. Leading theologians uttered some statements warning against unscrupulous reporters and their unreliable reports.

Imam Malik (d. AH 179/795 CE) was the first to undertake the comprehensive and systematic compilation of Hadith. His work is known as Al-Muwatta’ (The Trodden Path). Later, other compilations came into existence.

In this regard, it is very important to note that there are two kinds of compilations: musnad and musannaf. In musnad collections, hadiths are arranged alphabetically under the names of the Companions on whose authority these hadiths were reported. An example of this kind is the Musnad of Ibn Hanbal (d. AH 164/241 CE).

In musannaf collections, hadiths are recorded under various headings dealing with juridical subjects such as As-Sihah As-Sittah (The Six Authentic Books of Hadith) namely the compilations of Al-Bukhari (d. AH 256/870 CE), Muslim (d. AH 261/874 CE), An-Nasa’i (d. AH 302/914 CE), Abu Dawud (d. AH 200/835 CE), At-Tirmidhi (d. AH 279/892 CE), and Ibn Majah (d. AH 273/886 CE).

Evolution of the Science of Hadith

As time passed, many hadiths appeared due to several reasons. Some of these hadiths were not authentic. Therefore, it was quite necessary to sift out the authentic from the fabricated. One can say that this task was as necessary as that of removing the weeds from a flower bed. To be sure, the task was not that easy for early scholars to develop a tool by which they could regulate such immense Hadith literature.

It should be observed that the rules and criteria developed by Hadith scholars regulating their study of Hadith were meticulous, but some of their terminology varied from person to person, and their principles began to be systematically written down, but scattered among various books, for example, the Risalah of Ash-Shafi`i, the introduction to the Sahih of Muslim, and the Jami` of At-Tirmidhi. Many of the criteria of early Hadith scholars, such as Al-Bukhari, were deduced by later scholars from a careful study of which reporters or isnads (chains of transmission) were accepted or rejected by them.

In this way the science of Hadith (mustalah al-hadith) emerged. It was the purpose of this science to sift, organize, develop, and systemize earlier material. Scholars put forward theories, expanded biographical works of all generations, made full and well-defined classification of narrators and hadiths, and subjected works of leading compilers to vigorous scrutiny, sparing not even Al-Bukhari and Muslim.

Fabrication of Hadith

At this juncture, it is appropriate to mention something about the fabrication of hadiths. A fabricated hadith is one that is falsely ascribed to the Prophet while, in fact, he did not pronounce it; it is not permissible to narrate such hadiths. Most of the fabricated hadiths were introduced in Islamic literature by the fabricators themselves, that is, they forged the statements and invented the isnad from their own imagination.

Fabrication is divided into two categories: intentional and unintentional. Intentional fabrication was done by heretics, storytellers, various party leaders, and ignorant ascetics. It was also done due to political differences and prejudice for one’s own town, race, or imam.

Some of unintentional reasons behind the widespread phenomenon of the forgery of hadiths are given below:

1. Some transmitters took a well-known hadith and supported it with a new isnad just for the sake of novelty to attract the people around their transmission.

2. Some scholars committed a mistake in the transmission of the hadith when its isnad ends with a Companion or a successor only, so they attributed sayings to the Prophet while a Companion or a successor was responsible for them.

In order to sift out fabricated hadiths, some means were undertaken to carry out this uneasy task. Some of these means are comparing the hadiths of different students of the same scholar; comparing written documents and hadiths transmitted from memory; comparing the hadiths with related verses of the Qur’an and rational criticism.

Recent Hadith Debates

As mentioned in the very beginning, Muslims believe that the Sunnah of the Prophet, enshrined in the Hadith, was handed down by the Prophet himself and, therefore, it is regarded as an authentic and valid basis of Islamic law. This authenticity comes from the criticism of both the isnad and matn (text of hadiths) in order to distinguish between the genuine and the spurious. If few would still claim that criticism was directed only to the isnad, there is a possibility that many isnads are not authentic and this, in turn, belittles or even damages the authenticity and authority of the Sunnah as a source of Islamic legislation.

I am stating this in response to some theses put by modern orientalists that early Hadith critics directed their attention to the criticism of the isnad and neglected textual criticism. In a recent study on Hadith textual criticism, I discussed this issue and concluded the following: (1) that the opinion of some writers that very little attention was paid to testing the matn of the Hadith is based on fallaciousness; (2) that the opposite thesis—that the Hadith scholars devoted as much attention to the study of the quality of the contents of the Hadith as to the chain of reporters—is correct on the basis of their works; and (3) that their criticism of Hadith was a reliable method of authenticating the Sunnah.

I hope this answers your question. Thank you and please keep in touch.

Salam.

Useful Links:

Collecting the Hadith: Brief History

Authenticity of Al-Bukhari