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About Quran and HadithMuslims regard the Qur'an and the Sunnah (words and deeds of Muhammad) as the fundamental sources of Islam. The Qur’an is the central religious text of Islam. Muslims believe the Qur’an to be the book of divine guidance and direction for mankind, and consider the original Arabic text to be the final revelation of God. Islam holds that the Qur’an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad by the angel Jibril (Gabriel) from 610 AD to his death in 632 AD. The Qur’an was written down by Muhammad's companions while he was alive, although the prime method of transmission was oral. In 633 AD, the written text was compiled, and in 653 AD it was standardized, distributed in the Islamic empire and produced in large numbers. Hadith are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith collections are regarded as important tools for determining the Sunnah, or Muslim way of life. In Islamic terminology, the term hadith refers to reports about the statements or actions of the Islamic prophet Muhammad, or about his tacit approval of something said or done in his presence. A hadith consists of two aspects: the text of the report (matn) containing the actual narrative; and the chain of narrators (isnad, or sanad), which documents the route by which the report has been transmitted. The "sanad" is so named due to the reliance of the hadith specialists upon it in determining the authenticity or weakness of a hadith. The sanad consists of a ‘chain’ of the narrators each mentioning the one from whom they heard the hadith until mentioning the originator of the matn along with the matn itself. The first people who received hadith were the companions; so they preserved and understood it, knowing both its generality and particulars, and then conveyed it to those after them as they were commanded. Then the generation following them, the Followers received it thus conveying it to those after them and so on. So the companion would say, “I heard the Prophet say such and such.” The Follower would then say, “I heard a companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet.’” The one after him (after the Follower) would then say, “I heard someone say, ‘I heard a Companion say, ‘I heard the Prophet …’’” and so on. The overwhelming majority of Muslims consider hadith to be essential supplements to and clarifications of the Qur'an, Islam's holy book. In Islamic jurisprudence, the Qur'an contains many rules for the behavior expected of Muslims but there are no specific Qur'anic rules on many religious and practical matters. Muslims believe that they can look at the way of life, or sunnah, of Muhammad and his companions to discover what to imitate and what to avoid. Muslim scholars also find it useful to know how Muhammad or his companions explained the revelations, or on what occasion Muhammad received them. Sometimes this will clarify a passage that otherwise seems obscure. Hadith are a source for Islamic history and biography. For the vast majority of devout Muslims, authentic hadith are also a source of religious inspiration. The science of hadith (Arabic: `Ulum al-hadith) is a method of textual criticism developed by early Muslim scholars in determining the veracity of reports attributed to Muhammad. This is achieved by analyzing the text of the report, the scale of the report's transmission, the routes through which the report was transmitted, and the individual narrators involved in its transmission. On the basis of these criteria, various classifications were devised for hadith. Hadith are generally categorized as sahih (sound, authentic), da`if (weak), or mawdu` (fabricated). Other classifications used also include: hasan (good), which refers to an otherwise sahih report suffering from minor deficiency, or a weak report strengthened due to numerous other corroborating reports; and munkar (ignored) which is a report that is rejected due to the presence of a solitary and generally unreliable transmitter. Both sahih and hasan reports are considered acceptable for usage in Islamic legal discourse. Classifications of hadith may also be based upon the scale of transmission. Reports that pass through many reliable transmitters at each point in the isnad up until their collection and transcription are known as mutawatir. These reports are considered the most authoritative as they pass through so many different routes that collusion between all of the transmitters becomes an impossibility. Reports not meeting this standard are known as ahad, and are of several different types. Another area of focus in the study of hadith is biographical analysis (`ilm al-rijal, lit. "science of people"), in which details about the transmitter are scrutinized. This includes analyzing their date and place of birth; familial connections; teachers and students; religiosity; moral behaviour; literary output; their travels; as well as their date of death. Based upon these criteria, the reliability (thiqat) of the transmitter is assessed. Also determined is whether the individual was actually able to transmit the report, which is deduced from their contemporaneity and geographical proximity with the other transmitters in the chain.
While quoting Hadiths it is customary to mention the Hadith Book too in brackets after the text, example (Bukhari), (Muslim) etc Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim are usually considered the most reliable of these collections. However it has been admitted that there are at least a few questionable inclusions even in these collections, which however doesn’t undermine the significance or the reliability of the Hadith collections in general.
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