I. With reference to the character of those who have handed down the tradition:—

(1) Ḥadīs̤u ʾṣ-Ṣaḥīḥ, a genuine tradition, is one which has been handed down by truly pious persons who have been distinguished for their integrity.

(2) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-Ḥasan, a mediocre tradition, is one the narrators of which do not approach in moral excellence to those of the Ṣaḥīḥ class.

(3) Ḥadīs̤u ʾẓ-Ẓaʿīf, a weak tradition, is one whose narrators are of questionable authority.

The disputed claims of narrators to these three classes have proved a fruitful source of learned discussion, and very numerous are the works written upon the subject.

II. With reference to the original relators of the Ḥadīs̤:—

(1) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-Marfūʿ, an exalted tradition is a saying, or an act, related or performed by the Prophet himself and handed down in a tradition.

(2) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-Mauqūf, a restricted tradition, is a saying or an act related or performed by one of the aṣḥāb, or Companions of the Prophet.

(3) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-Maqt̤ūʿ, an intersected tradition, is a saying or an act related or performed by one of the Tābiʿūn, or those who conversed with the Companions of the Prophet.

III. With reference to the links in the chain of the narrators of the tradition, a Ḥadīs̤ is either Muttaṣil, connected, or Munqat̤iʿ, disconnected. If the chain of narrators is complete from the time of the first utterance of the saying or performance of the act recorded to the time that it was written down by the collector of traditions, it is Muttaṣil; but if the chain of narrators is incomplete, it is Munqat̤iʿ.

IV. With reference to the manner in which the tradition has been narrated, and transmitted down from the first:—

(1) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-Mutawātir, an undoubted tradition, is one which is handed down by very many distinct chains of narrators, and which has been always accepted as authentic and genuine, no doubt ever having been raised against it. The learned doctors say there are only five such traditions; but the exact number is disputed.

(2) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-Mashhūr, a well-known tradition, is one which has been handed down by at least three distinct lines of narrators. It is called also Mustafīẓ, diffused. It is also used for a tradition which was at first recorded by one person, or a few individuals, and afterwards became a popular tradition.

(3) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-ʿAzīz, a rare tradition, is one related by only two lines of narrators.

(4) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-G͟harīb, a poor tradition, is one related by only one line of narrators.

(5) K͟habaru ʾl-Wāḥid, a single saying, is a term also used for a tradition related by one person and handed down by one line of narrators. It is a disputed point whether a K͟habar Wāḥid can form the basis of Muslim doctrine.

(6) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-Mursal (lit. “a tradition let loose”), is a tradition which any collector of traditions, such as al-Buk͟hārī and others, records with the assertion, “the Apostle of God said.”

(7) Riwāyah, is a Ḥadīs̤ which commences with the words “it is related,” without the authority being given.

(8) Ḥadīs̤u ʾl-Mauẓūʿ, an invented tradition, is one the untruth of which is beyond dispute.

The following is a specimen of a ḥadīs̤, as given in the collection of at-Tirmiẕī, which will exemplify the way in which a tradition is recorded:—

“Abū Kuraib said to us (ḥaddas̤a-nā) that Ibrāhīm ibn Yūsuf ibn Abī Isḥāq said to us (ḥaddas̤a-nā), from (ʿan) his father, from (ʿan) Abū Isḥāq, from (ʿan) Tulātā ibn Musārif, that he said, I have heard (samiʿtu), from ʿAbdu ʾr-Raḥmān ibn Ausajah, that he said (yaqūlu), I have heard (samiʿtu) from Barā ibn ʿĀzib that he said (yaqūlu) I have heard (samiʿtu) that the Prophet said, Whoever shall give in charity a milch cow, or silver, or a leathern bottle of water, it shall be equal to the freeing of a slave.”

The Honourable Syed Ahmed Khan Bahadur, C.S.I., an educated Muḥammadan gentleman, in an Essay on Mohammedan Traditions, gives the following information:—

For the purpose of expressing how a tradition had been communicated from one person to another, certain introductory verbal forms were selected by duly qualified persons, and it was incumbent upon every one about to narrate a tradition, to commence by that particular form appropriated to the said tradition, and this was done with the view of securing for each tradition the quantum of credit to which it might be justly entitled.

These introductory verbal forms are as follow: (1) حدثنا‎ “He said to me”; (2) سمعته يقول‎ “I heard him saying”; (3) قال لنا‎ “He told me”; (4) ذكر لنا‎ “He related to me”; (5) اخبرنا‎ “He informed me”; (6) انبانا‎ “He informed me”; (7) عن‎ “From.”

The first four introductory forms were to be used only in the case of an original narrator communicating the very words of the tradition to the next one below him. The fifth and sixth introductory verbal forms were used when a narrator inquired of the narrator immediately above him whether such or such a fact, or circumstance, was or was not correct. The last form is not sufficiently explicit, and the consequence is that it cannot be decided to which of the two persons the tradition related belongs, so that unless other facts be brought to bear upon it, it cannot be satisfactorily proved whether there be any other persons, one, or more than one, intermediary between the two narrators. As to any external facts that might prove what was required to be known, the learned are divided in their opinions.

First: If it be known of a certainty that the narrator is not notorious for fraudulently omitting the names of other parties forming links in the chain of narration, and who also lived at such a time and in such a locality that it was possible, although not proved, that they visited each other, then it might be taken for granted that there were no other narrators intermediary between these two.

Secondly: Other learned authorities add that it must be proved that they visited each other, at least once in their life-time.

Thirdly: Others assert that it must be proved that they remained together for such a time as would be sufficient to enable them to learn the tradition, one from the other.

Fourthly: Some hold that it must be proved that one of them really learned the tradition from the other.

The associates of the Prophet, and those persons who lived immediately after them, used to relate, with the exception of the Qurʾān, the sense of the Prophet’s words in their own language, unless they had to use some phrases containing prayers, or when they had to point out to others the very words of the Prophet. It is natural to suppose that deeply-learned persons would themselves understand and deliver, to others, the sense of the sayings better than persons of inferior parts, and therefore narrators have been divided into seven grades.

First: Persons highly conspicuous for their learning and legal acquirements, as well as for their retentive memory. Such persons are distinguished by the title of ايمة الحديث‎ Aʾimmatu ʾl-Ḥadīs̤, that is “Leaders in Ḥadīs̤.”

Second: Persons who, as to their knowledge, take rank after the first, and who but very rarely committed any mistake.

Third: Persons who have made alterations in the pure religion of the Prophet, without carrying them to extremes by prejudice, but respecting whose integrity and honesty there is no doubt.

Fourth: Persons respecting whom nothing is known.

Fifth: Persons who have made alterations in the pure religion of the Prophet, and, actuated by prejudice, have carried them to extremes.

Sixth: Persons who are pertinaciously sceptical, and have not a retentive memory.

Seventh: Persons who are notorious for inventing spurious traditions. Learned divines are of opinion that the traditions related by persons of the first three classes should be accepted as true, according to their respective merits, and also that traditions related by persons coming under the three last classes should be, at once, entirely rejected; and that the traditions related by persons of the fourth class, should be passed over unnoticed so long as the narrator remained unknown.

We should not be justified in concluding that, whenever a difference is met with in traditions, these latter are nothing more than so many mere inventions and fabrications of the narrators, since, besides the fabrication of ḥadīs̤, there are also other natural causes which might occasion such differences; and we shall now consider those natural causes which produce such variety among ḥadīs̤.

(1) A misunderstanding of the real sense of the saying of the Prophet.

(2) Difference of the opinions of two narrators in understanding the true sense of the Prophet’s saying.

(3) Inability to enunciate clearly the sense of the Prophet’s saying.

(4) Failure of memory on the part of the narrator—in consequence of which he either left out some portion or portions of the Prophet’s saying, or mixed up together the meanings of two different ḥadīs̤.

(5) Explanation of any portion of the ḥadīs̤ given by the narrator, with the intention of its being easily understood by the party hearing it, but unfortunately mistaken by the latter for an actual portion of the ḥadīs̤ itself.

(6) Quotations of certain of the Prophet’s words by the narrator, for the purpose of supporting his own narration, while the hearers of the narration erroneously took the whole of it as being the Prophet’s own words.

(7) Traditions borrowed from the Jews erroneously taken to be the words of the Prophet, and the difference existing between such Jewish traditions was thus transferred to those of the Muḥammadans. The stories of ancient persons and early prophets, with which our histories and commentaries are filled, are all derived from these sources.

(8) The difference which is naturally caused in the continual transmission of a tradition by oral communication, as it has been in the case of traditions having miracles for their subject-matter.

(9) The various states and circumstances in which the different narrators saw the Prophet.

There exists no doubt respecting the circumstance of certain persons having fabricated some ḥadīs̤ in the Prophet’s name. Those who perpetrated so impudent a forgery were men of the following descriptions:—

(1) Persons desirous of introducing some praiseworthy custom among the public, forged ḥadīs̤ in order to secure success. Such fabrication is restricted exclusively to those ḥadīs̤ which treat of the advantages and benefits which reading the Qurʾān and praying procure to any one, both in this world and the next; which show how reciting passages from the Qurʾān cures every disease, etc.: the real object of such frauds being to lead the public into the habit of reading the Qurʾān and of praying. According to our religion, the perpetrators of such frauds, or of any others, stand in the list of sinners.

(2) Preachers, with a view of collecting large congregations around them, and of amusing their hearers, invented many traditions, such traditions being only those which describe the state and condition of paradise and of hell, as well as the state and condition of the soul after death, etc., in order to awaken the fear of God’s wrath and the hope of salvation.

(3) Those persons who made alterations in the religion of the Prophet, and who, urged by their prejudices, carried the same to extremes, and who, for the purpose of successfully confronting their controversial antagonists, forged such traditions in order to favour their own interested views.

(4) Unbelievers who maliciously coined and circulated spurious ḥadīs̤. Learned men, however, have greatly exerted themselves in order to discover such fabricated traditions, and have written many works upon the subject, laying down rules for ascertaining false traditions and for distinguishing them from genuine ones.

The modes of procedure were as follows: Such persons examined the very words employed in such traditions, as well as their style of composition; they compared the contents of each ḥadīs̤ with the commands and injunctions contained in the Qurʾān, with those religious doctrines and dogmas that have been deduced from the Qurʾān, and with those ḥadīs̤ which have been proved to be genuine; they investigated the nature of the import of such traditions, as to whether it was unreasonable, improbable, or impossible.

It will, therefore, be evident that the ḥadīs̤ considered as genuine by Muḥammadans, must indispensably possess the following characters: The narrator must have plainly and distinctly mentioned that such and such a thing was either said or done by the Prophet; the chain of narrators from the last link up to the Prophet, must be unbroken; the subject related must have come under the actual ken of its first narrators; every one of the narrators, from the last up to the Prophet, must have been persons conspicuous for their piety, virtue, and honesty; every narrator must have received more than one ḥadīs̤ from the narrator immediately preceding him; every one of the narrators must be conspicuous for his learning, so that he might be safely presumed to be competent both to understand correctly, and faithfully deliver to others, the sense of the tradition; the import of the tradition must not be contrary to the injunctions contained in the Qurʾān, or to the religious doctrines deduced from that Book, or to the traditions proved to be correct; and the nature of the import of the tradition must not be such as persons might hesitate in accepting.

Any tradition thus proved genuine can be made the basis of any religious doctrine; but notwithstanding this, another objection may be raised against it, which is, that this tradition is the statement of one person only, and therefore, cannot, properly, be believed in implicitly. For obviating this, three grades have been again formed of the ḥadīs̤ proved as genuine. These three grades are the following: متواتر‎ Mutawātir, مشهور‎ Mashhūr, and خبر احد‎ K͟habar-i-Aḥad.

Mutawātir is an appellation given to those ḥadīs̤ only that have always been, from the time of the Prophet, ever afterwards recognised and accepted by every associate of the Prophet, and every learned individual, as authentic and genuine, and to which no one has raised any objection. All learned Muḥammadan divines of every period have declared that the Qurʾān only is the Ḥadīs̤ Mutawātir; but some doctors have declared certain other ḥadīs̤ also to be Mutawātir, the number, however, of such ḥadīs̤ not exceeding five. Such are the traditions that are implicitly believed and ought to be religiously observed.

Mashhūr is a title given to those traditions that, in every age, have been believed to be genuine, by some learned persons. These are the traditions which are found recorded in the best works that treat of them, and, having been generally accepted as genuine, form the nucleus of some of the Muslim doctrines.

K͟habar-i-Aḥad (or ḥadīs̤ related by one person), is an appellation given to traditions that do not possess any of the qualities belonging to the traditions of the first two grades. Opinions of the learned are divided whether or not they can form the basis of any religious doctrine.

Persons who undertook the task of collecting traditions had neither time nor opportunity for examining and investigating all the above particulars, and some of them collected together whatsoever came under their notice, while others collected only those whose narrators were acknowledged to be trustworthy and honest persons, leaving entirely upon their readers the task of investigating and examining all the above-mentioned particulars, as well as of deciding their comparative merits, their genuineness, and the quantum of credit due to them.

There is some difference of opinion as to who first attempted to collect the traditions, and to compile them in a book. Some say ʿAbdu ʾl-Malik ibn Juraij of Makkah, who died A.H. 150, whilst others assert that the collection, which is still extant, by the Imām Mālik, who died A.H. 179, was the first collection. The work by Imām Mālik is still held in very great esteem, and although not generally included among the standard six, it is believed by many to be the source from whence a great portion of their materials are derived.

The following are the Ṣiḥāḥu ʾs-Sittah, or “six correct” books, received by Sunnī Muslims:—

(1) Muḥammad Ismāʿīl al-Buk͟hārī, A.H. 256.

(2) Muslim ibnu ʾl-Ḥajjāj, A.H. 261.

(3) Abū ʿĪsā Muḥammad, at-Tirmiẕī, A.H. 279.

(4) Abū Daʾūd as-Sajistānī, A.H. 275.

(5) Abū ʿAbdi ʾr-Raḥmān an-Nasāʾī, A.H. 303.

(6) Abū ʿAbdi ʾllāh Muḥammad Ibn Mājah, A.H. 273.

According to the Itḥāfu ʾn-Nubalāʾ, there are as many as 1,465 collections of traditions in existence, although the six already recorded are the more generally used amongst the Sunnīs.

It is often stated by European writers that the Shīʿahs reject the Traditions. This is not correct. The Sunnīs arrogate to themselves the title of Traditionists; but the Shīʿahs, although they do not accept the collections of traditions as made by the Sunnīs, receive five collections of Aḥādīs̤, upon which their system of law, both civil and religious, is founded.

(1) The Kāfī, by Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb, A.H. 329.

(2) The Man-lā-yastaḥẓirahu ʾl-Faqīh, by Shaik͟h ʿAlī, A.H. 381.

(3) The Tahẕīb, by Shaik͟h Abū Jaʿfar Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī ibn Ḥusain, A.H. 466.

(4) The Istibṣār, by the same author.

(5) The Nahju ʾl-Balāg͟hah, by Saiyid ar-Raẓī, A.H. 406.

There are many stories which illustrate the importance the Companions of the Prophet attached to Sunnah. The K͟halīfah ʿUmar looked towards the black stone at Makkah, and said, “By God, I know that thou art only a stone, and canst grant no benefit, canst do no harm. If I had not known that the Prophet kissed thee, I would not have done so, but on account of that I do it.” ʿAbdu ʾllāh ibn ʿUmar was seen riding his camel round and round a certain place. In answer to an inquiry as to his reason for so doing, he said: “I know not, only I have seen the Prophet do so here.” Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal is said to have been appointed on account of the care with which he observed the Sunnah. One day when sitting in an assembly, he alone of all present observed some formal custom authorised by the practice of the Prophet. Gabriel at once appeared and informed him that now, and on account of his act, he was appointed an Imām. And on another occasion it is said this great traditionist would not even eat water-melons, because, although he knew the Prophet ate them, he could not learn whether he ate them with or without the rind, or whether he broke, bit or cut them: and he forbade a woman, who questioned him as to the propriety of the act, to spin by the light of torches passing in the streets by night, because the Prophet had not mentioned that it was lawful to do so.

The modern Wahhābīs being, for the most part, followers of Ibn Ḥanbal, attach great importance to the teaching of the Traditions, and have therefore caused a revival of this branch of Muslim literature. [WAHHABI.]

We are indebted to Sir William Muir’s Introduction to the Life of Mahomet, for the following:—

“Mahometan tradition consists of the sayings of the friends and followers of the Prophet, handed down by a real or supposed chain of narrators to the period when they were collected, recorded, and classified. The process of transmission was for the most part oral. It may be sketched as follows.

“After the death of Mahomet, the main employment of his followers was arms. The pursuit of pleasure, and the formal round of religious observances, filled up the interstices of active life, but afforded scanty exercise for the higher faculties of the mind. The tedium of long and irksome marches, and the lazy intervals from one campaign to another, fell listlessly upon a simple and semi-barbarous race. These intervals were occupied, and that tedium beguiled, chiefly by calling up the past in familiar conversation or more formal discourse. On what topic, then, would the early Moslems more enthusiastically descant than on the acts and sayings of that wonderful man who had called them into existence as a conquering nation, and had placed in their hands ‘the keys both of this world and of Paradise’?

“Thus the converse of Mahomet’s followers would be much about him. The majesty of his character gained greatness by contemplation; and, as time removed him farther and farther from them, the lineaments of the mysterious mortal who was wont to hold familiar intercourse with the messengers of heaven, rose in dimmer, but in more gigantic proportions. The mind was unconsciously led on to think of him as endowed with supernatural power, and ever surrounded by supernatural agency. Here was the material out of which Tradition grew luxuriantly. Whenever there was at hand no standard of fact whereby these recitals may be tested, the memory was aided by the unchecked efforts of the imagination; and as days rolled on, the latter element gained complete ascendancy.

“Such is the result which the lapse of time would naturally have upon the minds and the narratives of the As-háb or ‘Companions’ of Mahomet, more especially of those who were young when he died. And then another race sprang up who had never seen the Prophet, who looked up to his contemporaries with a superstitious reverence, and who listened to their stories of him as to the tidings of a messenger from the other world. ‘Is it possible, father of Abdallah! that thou hast been with Mahomet?’ was the question addressed by a pious Moslem to Hodzeifa, in the mosque of Kufâ; ‘didst thou really see the Prophet, and wert thou on familiar terms with him?’—‘Son of my uncle! it is indeed as thou sayest.’—‘And how wert thou wont to behave towards the Prophet?’—‘Verily, we used to labour hard to please him.’—‘Well, by the Lord!’ exclaimed the ardent listener, ‘had I been but alive in his time, I would not have allowed him to put his blessed foot upon the earth, but would have borne him on my shoulders wherever he listed.’ (Hishâmi, p. 295.) Upon another occasion, the youthful Obeida listened to a Companion who was reciting before an assembly how the Prophet’s head was shaved at the Pilgrimage, and the hair distributed amongst his followers; the eyes of the young man glistened as the speaker proceeded, and he interrupted him with the impatient exclamation,—‘Would that I had even a single one of those blessed hairs! I would cherish it for ever, and prize it beyond all the gold and silver in the world.’ (Kâtib al Wâckidi, p. 279.) Such were the natural feelings of fond devotion with which the Prophet came to be regarded by the followers of the ‘Companions.’

“As the tale of the Companions was thus taken up by their followers, distance began to invest it with an increasing charm, while the products of living faith and warm imagination were being fast debased by superstitious credulity. This second generation are termed in the language of the patriotic lore of Arabia, Tâbiûn, or ‘Successors.’ Here and there a Companion survived till near the end of the first century; but, for all practical purposes, they had passed off the stage before the commencement of its last quarter. Their first Successors, who were in some measure also their contemporaries, flourished in the latter half of the same century, though some of the oldest may have survived for a time in the second.

“Meanwhile a new cause was at work, which gave to the tales of Mahomet’s companions a fresh and an adventitious importance.

“The Arabs, a simple and unsophisticated race, found in the Coran ample provisions for the regulation of all their affairs, religious, social, and political. But the aspect of Islam soon underwent a mighty change. Scarcely was the Prophet dead when his followers issued forth from their barren peninsula, armed with the warrant of the Coran to impose the faith of Mahomet upon all the nations of the earth. Within a century they had, as a first step to this universal subjugation, conquered every land that intervened between the banks of the Oxus and the farthest shores of Northern Africa and of Spain; and had enrolled the great majority of their peoples under the standard of the Coran. This vast empire differed widely indeed from the Arabia of Mahomet’s time; and that which well sufficed for the patriarchal simplicity and limited social system of the early Arabs, became utterly inadequate for the hourly multiplying wants of their descendants. Crowded cities, like Fostât, Kufâ, and Damascus, required an elaborate compilation of laws for the guidance of their courts of justice: new political relations demanded a system of international equity: the speculations of a people before whom literature was preparing to throw open her arena, and the controversies of eager factions upon nice points of Mahometan faith, were impatient of the narrow limits which confined them:—all called loudly for the enlargement of the scanty and naked dogmas of the Coran, and for the development of its defective code of ethics.

“And yet it was the cardinal principle of early Islam, that the standard of Law, of Theology, and of Politics, was the Coran and the Coran alone. By it Mahomet himself ruled; to it in his teaching he always referred; from it he professed to derive his opinions, and upon it to ground his decisions. If he, the Messenger of the Lord, and the Founder of the faith, was thus bound by the Coran, much more were the Caliphs, his uninspired substitutes. New and unforeseen circumstances were continually arising, for which the Coran contained no provision. It no longer sufficed for its original object. How then were its deficiencies to be supplied?

“The difficulty was resolved by adopting the Custom or ‘Sunnat’ of Mahomet, that is, his sayings and his practice, as a supplement to the Coran. The recitals regarding the life of the Prophet now acquired an unlooked-for value. He had never held himself to be infallible, except when directly inspired of God; but this new doctrine assumed that a heavenly and unerring guidance pervaded every word and action of his prophetic life. Tradition was thus invested with the force of law, and with some of the authority of inspiration. It was in great measure owing to the rise of this theory, that, during the first century of Islam, the cumbrous recitals of tradition so far outstripped the dimensions of reality. The prerogative now claimed for Tradition stimulated the growth of fabricated evidence, and led to the preservation of every kind of story, spurious or real, touching the Prophet. Before the close of the century it had imparted an almost incredible impulse to the search for traditions, and had in fact given birth to the new profession of Collectors. Men devoted their lives to the business. They travelled from city to city, and from tribe to tribe, over the whole Mahometan world; sought out by personal inquiry every vestige of Mahomet’s biography yet lingering among the Companions, the Successors, and their descendants; and committed to writing the tales and reminiscences with which they used to edify their wondering and admiring auditors.

“The work, however, too closely affected the public interests, and the political aspect of the empire, to be left entirely to private and individual zeal. About a hundred years after Mahomet, the Caliph Omar II. issued circular orders for the formal collection of all extant traditions. [He committed to Abu Bacr ibn Muhammad the task of compiling all the traditions he could meet with. This traditionist died A.H. 120, aged 84. Sprenger’s Mohammed, p. 67.] The task thus begun continued to be vigorously prosecuted, but we possess no authentic remains of any compilation of an earlier date than the middle or end of the second century. Then, indeed, ample materials had been amassed, and they have been handed down to us both in the shape of Biographies and of general Collections, which bear upon every imaginable point of Mahomet’s character, and detail the minutest incidents of his life.

“It thus appears that the traditions we now possess remained generally in an unrecorded form for at least the greater part of a century. It is not indeed denied that some of Mahomet’s sayings may possibly have been noted down in writing during his life-time, and from that source copied and propagated afterwards. We say possibly, for the evidence in favour of any such record is meagre, suspicious, and contradictory. The few and uncertain statements of this nature may have owed their origin to the authority which a habit of the kind would impart to the name of a Companion, supposed to have practised it.… It is hardly possible that, if the custom had prevailed of writing down Mahomet’s sayings during his life, we should not have had frequent intimation of the fact, with notices of the writers, and special references to the nature, contents, and peculiar authority of their records. But no such references or quotations are anywhere to be found. It cannot be objected that the Arabs trusted so implicitly to their memory that they regarded oral to be as authoritative as recorded narratives, and therefore would take no note of the latter; for we see that Omar was afraid lest even the Coran, believed by him to be divine and itself the subject of heavenly care, should become defective if left to the memory of man. Just as little weight, on the other hand, should be allowed to the tradition that Mahomet prohibited his followers from noting down his words; though it is not easy to see how that tradition could have gained currency at all, had it been the regular and constant practice of any persons to record his sayings. The truth appears to be that there was in reality no such practice; and that the story of the prohibition, though spurious, embodies the after-thought of serious Mahometans as to what Mahomet would have said, had he foreseen the loose and fabricated stories that sprang up, and the real danger his people would fall into of allowing Tradition to supersede the Coran. The evils of Tradition were, in truth, as little thought of as its value was perceived, till many years after Mahomet’s death.

“But even were we to admit all that has been advanced, it would prove no more than that some of the Companions used to keep memoranda of the Prophet’s sayings. Now, unless it be possible to connect such memoranda with extant Tradition, the concession would be useless. But it is not, as far as I know, demonstrable of any single tradition or class of traditions now in existence, that they were copied from such memoranda, or have been derived in any way from them. To prove, therefore, that some traditions were at first recorded, will not help us to a knowledge of whether any of these still exist, or to a discrimination of them from others resting on a purely oral basis. The very most that could be urged from the premises is, that our present collections may contain some traditions founded upon a recorded original, and handed down in writing; but we are unable to single out any individual tradition and make such affirmation regarding it. The entire mass of extant tradition rests in this respect on the same uncertain ground, and the uncertainty of any one portion (apart from internal evidence of probability) attaches equally to the whole. We cannot with confidence, or even with the least show of likelihood, affirm of any tradition that it was recorded till nearly the end of the first century of the Hegira.

“We see, then, how entirely tradition, as now possessed by us, rests its authority on the memory of those who handed it down; and how dependent therefore it must have been upon their convictions and their prejudices. For, in addition to the common frailty of human recollection which renders traditional evidence notoriously infirm, and to the errors or exaggerations which always distort a narrative transmitted orally through many witnesses, there exist throughout Mahometan Tradition abundant indications of actual fabrication; and there may everywhere be traced the indirect but not less powerful and dangerous influence of a silently working bias, which insensibly gave its colour and its shape to all the stories of their Prophet treasured up in the memories of the believers.

*   *   *

“That the Collectors of Tradition rendered an important service to Islam, and even to history, cannot be doubted. The vast flood of tradition, poured forth from every quarter of the Moslem empire, and daily gathering volume from innumerable tributaries, was composed of the most heterogeneous elements; without the labours of the traditionists it must soon have formed a chaotic sea, in which truth and error, fact and fable, would have mingled together in undistinguishable confusion. It is a legitimate inference from the foregoing sketch, that Tradition, in the second century, embraced a large element of truth. That even respectably derived traditions often contained much that was exaggerated and fabulous, is an equally fair conclusion. It is proved by the testimony of the Collectors themselves, that thousands and tens of thousands were current in their times, which possessed not even a shadow of authority. The mass may be likened to the image in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream, formed by the unnatural union of gold, of silver, of the baser metals, and of clay; and here the more valuable parts were fast commingling hopelessly with the bad.” (Muir’s Life of Mahomet, vol. i., Intro. p. xxviii.)