Hamid Hafni Dawud Cairo...

Hamid Hafni Dawud Cairo, College of Languages Author's preface The motive for writing this book "And if Allah pleases He would certainly make you a single nation." The Qur'an, chapter an-Nahl, Verse 93 Many researchers in noble traditions of the Prophet of Islam have, since long ago, realized that there exist wide differences between some of these traditions themselves, and also between them and the verses of the divine Book.

The result was that some of the past scholars decided to account for and interpret these differences in order to remove objections to the Prophet and his traditions, and they wrote books entitled: "Ta'wil mukhtalif al-hadith"11, "Bayan mushkil al-hadith"12, "Bayan mushkilat al-athar"13, etc., which roused the hostility of such critics as atheists and Christian missionaries, and a group of orientalists so that by reliance on the contradictions and differences of these traditions, they could reproach the Prophet of Islam and deride and criticize his religion.

But both groups were ignorant of the fact that the great collection of traditions, especially those which contradict each other, have not been written in the same style to make them confident that all of them have come from and have been stated exactly by the Prophet so that these could be subjected to a single general survey. They are a collection of several different traditions, which have reached us from various narrators.

A researcher must first classify them in connection with the type of narrators. For example, the traditions related to 'A'ishah Umm al-Mu'minin, Anas14, Abu Hurayrah15, 'Abd Allah ibn 'Umar16 must each be collected separately and compared in conjunction with the traditions of other narrators who have quoted from the Prophet (with 11.By Ibn Qutaybah, 'Abd Allah ibn Muslim, died 280 or 276 AH. 12.By Muhammad, Ya-Husayn Ibn Furak, died 446 or 406 AH.

By Abu Ja'far, Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Azdi at-Tahawi, died 321 or 332 AH. 14.Anas ibn Malik ibn an-Nadr claims to have served the Prophet for ten years. From him 2286 of the Prophet's traditions have been quoted. He died in the year 92 or 93 AH in Basra and was buried there. His biography is given in al-Isti'ab p. 40, and Usd al-ghabah 1/127, al-Isabah 227 and Jawami' as-sirah 276. 15. There are differences about the parentage of Abu Hurayrah ad-Dawsi.

None of the Prophet's companions equals him in the number of traditions, and a total of 5374 of the Prophet's traditions have been quoted from him.