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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Light On the Muhammadan Sunnah Or Defence of the Hadith The Shiah and Writing of Hadith After discussing writing of hadith by Ahl al-Sunnah, I found it better to complete our discussion about history of tadwin of hadith by the Shi’ah so as to make commentary about this subject full-fledged on all respects, thus: The Shi'ah hold that: The first one who collected the traditions and arranged them into chapters was Abu Rafi', mawla of the Messenger of Allah, 498 who compiled the book al-Sunan wa al-ahkam wa al-qadaya.

It is said that no one preceded him in arranging the hadith and compiling it into chapters. 499 The eminent scholar Muhammad Husayn Al Kashif al-Ghita' al-Najafi, in his book al-Mutala’at wa al muraja’at wa al rudud, 500 writes: The first one to write hadith was Ibn Abi Rafi', a scribe of Amir al-Mu'minin Ali ibn Abi Talib (peace be upon him), and his treasurer or rather in fact the first who wrote down the hadith was Amir al-Mu'minin himself, as indicated by the report (khabar ) of al-Sahifah in the two Sahihs.

501 Origination of Science of Hadith I have stated before that had the Messenger's traditions been committed to writing immediately when being uttered by him, and those written throughout time been memorized, people would have received them as in the case of the Qur'an — without questioning about their veracity, or going in search of their truth.

But not writing them in the era of the Message -bearer and his , and taking them from oral tradition (riwayah) compelled the ulama’ to investigate about them to recognize the sahih ones and the fabricated, beside other things in this regard.

The First Who Compiled Ilm al-Hadith: Al-Hafiz Ibn Hajar 502 is reported to have said: The first one who compiled (a book) on idioms was al-Qadi Abu Muhammad al-Ramhurmuzi, 503 who authored the book al-Muhaddith al-fasil bayn al-rawi wa al-wa’i, but he could not take up (everything). Beside him, was al-Hakim Abu Abd Allah al-Nisaburi (d.405) but he neither rectified nor classified.

He was followed by Abu Nu'aym al-Isbahani (d.430 AD), who compiled a book drawing out in which some terms with leaving things to be recognized by the researcher. After him came al-Khatib al-Baghdadi (d.463) who compiled his famous book rectifying its arts, the reason why people indulged in it, heeding to it, abridged by some like al-Nawawi in his Taqrib, and versified by others like al-Iraqi (d.806 H.).