This practice was common and prevalent among them...

This practice was common and prevalent among them, finding no harm in it since what is intended of the hadith as held by them being mainly the meaning, with no rule entailed — most often — out of syntax. This was contrary to the case of the Qur'an as its words having miraculous entry, in a way that no room being there for substituting any word with another, though being identical in meaning, for fear of being forgotten with passage of time.

Hence it was extremely necessary to record and preserve it through the means of writing, not to be satisfied with committing it to memory, and its inimatability is undoubtedly established upon the composition of its words and terms. Al-Imam al-Khitabi in his book I'jaz al-Qur’an writes: The speech rests upon three factors: a purporting word, and a standing meaning, and a connector organizing them both.

Al-Shaykh Abu Bakr ibn `Iqal al-Siqilli in his Fawa’id reported that Ibn Bushkuwal said: "The should collect and compile the traditions (sunan) of the Messenger of Allah (may God's peace and benediction be upon him and his Progeny) in one mushaf as they did with the Qur'an, since the sunan were spread abroad and the preserved ones became indiscernible from those foisted ones.

Hence those charged with preserving them were but to commit them to memory, the practice was not followed in the case of the Qur'an. Besides, the words used in the traditions were not guarded against addition and omission as the Book of Allah was safeguarded by Him through rhetorical syntax the like of which no man could be able to produce.

Thus they were unanimous regarding what they collected of the Qur'an, while differing in regard of the words of the traditions and the reporting of the texts of the metrical composition, the reason for which it was impermissible for them to write down that which was a subject of difference among them.

469 Narrating the hadith remained to be under the mercy of memory, without being written down or recorded throughout the reign of the Sahabah and the main part of the era of the Tabi`un up to the time of tadwin which they believed to be at the end of the era of the Tabi'un.

470 Al-Hurawi says: 471 Neither the Sahabah nor the Tabi'un used to write down the traditions, but they would convey them orally and take them through learning by heart, except the chapter on charities and a little of that which could not be comprehended by any researcher but only after hard investigation.