ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Light On the Muhammadan Sunnah Or Defence of the Hadith Tadwin Al-hadith: 468 In the beginning stage of putting hadith to writing, the Sahabah wrote it down in the form they received it. Every one of them embarked on collecting as many as he could of the traditions according to what the narrators reported with their chains of transmitters (asanid).

Thereafter they kept on investing the conditions and position of these narrators so as to recognize that whose narration was to be accepted and the one whose reporting to be rejected. It is to be known that though they have exerted much effort in this regard, but they could not attain to the sought end, nor reached the certainty of which the self feels confident and the heart rests assured that what they had written was the same as uttered by the Prophet, without any doubt or suspicion.

How is it feasible for them to find way into intentions so as to recognize the ins and outs as they be in truth? Because of this, all their (Sunnis) books were devoid of any hadith considered mutawatir among the traditions reported from the Messenger of Allah, but they contained those regarded Sahih by the narrators and some which were fabricated totally with no origin.

This fact can be applied to all of their books even those which they (Ahl al-Sunnah) used to call al-Sihah, like Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim, as they were not immune against campaign of criticism launched by Imams of hadith, men of usul and theologians against hadith books.

From the previous chapter, we understand that the , during the reign of Abu Bakr, collected and compiled the Qur'an in one book, out of whatever was written during the lifetime of the Prophet (S) and from the breasts of men, exerting in this task much accurate effort.

Whereas this practice was not followed in the case of hadith, as the Messenger’s traditions were neither written nor collected during the days of the Prophet as was the case with the Qur'an, because the Prophet forbade from putting them to writing, and they were preserved only in the breasts of men.

For this reason, the way they followed for propagating them was the riwayah, either with the very words they heard from the Prophet — if they remained in their memories, which was so rare in some short traditions — or through expressions indicating their meanings in case of their being forgotten.