Therefore there was much fear of its being obliterated with...

Therefore there was much fear of its being obliterated with the death snatching the lives of the ulama' when Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz ordered Abu Bakr al-Hazmi, 472 among what he wrote to him: Search for every sunnah and hadith and write them down.

In al-Muwatta’ Malik, on the authority of Muhammad ibn al-hasan, said: Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz wrote to Abu Bakr ibn Hazm: Look for every hadith uttered by the Messenger of Allah or his sunan and write them for me, as I fear obliteration of knowledge and passing away of the ulama’. He recommended him to write down whatever was collected and kept with Umrah bint Abd al-Rahman al-Ansariyyah — who was the disciple of A'ishah — and al-Qasim ibn Muhammad ibn Abi Bakr.

In regard of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, he was approaching the end of the first century. 473 When he passed away, Ibn Hazm abandoned writing of hadith, particularly when he was deposed by Yazid ibn Abd al-Malik who took power after Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz in the year 101 H. And so did all those who were charged with writing during the reign of Abu Bakr, the fact leading to the sluggishness in process of tadwin, till the time when Hisham ibn Abd al-Malik assumed power in 105 H.

Thereat this work was followed up seriously with Ibn Shahab al-Zuhri, 474 or rather it is said that the emirs compelled him to write down the hadith, as they loathed the writing of knowledge, as will be manifested later on. But in a short time this loathing changed to satisfaction, and Ibn Shahab turned to be a favourite of Hisham, performing pilgrimage (hajj) with him, becoming the tutor of his sons, till he died one year before Hisham, who died in 125 H.

With his death the sovereignty of the Umayyads became unsteady and disturbed. Then tadwin became publicly known and circulated among the first class (of narrators) that succeeded al-Zuhri, the act that was encouraged by the Abbasids. Ibn Shahab al-Zuhri was regarded the first one writing down the hadith, the reason for which the Umayyads have taken from him.

In Tadhkirat al-huffaz it is reported that: Khalid ibn Mi'dan al-Hamsi lived contemporaneously with seventy , and he used to write hadith, having several compilations to which no reference is made in hadith books. He died in `104H.