Editing Hadith (section)

====Extent and nature in the Sunni tradition====
In the Sunni tradition, the number of such texts is somewhere between seven and thirteen thousand,{{#tag:ref|See the references and discussion by Abdul Fattah Abu Ghuddah ''Thalathatu rasa'il fi ulum al-hadith; risalat abi dawud ila ahl makkata fi wasf sunanihi'', pg 36, footnote. Beirut: ''Maktaba al-Matbu'at al-Islamiyah'': 2nd ed 1426/2005.|group=Note}} but the number of ''hadiths'' is far greater because several ''isnad'' sharing the same text are each counted as individual hadith. If,  say, ten companions record a text reporting a single incident in the life of Muhammad, hadith scholars can count this as ten hadiths. Thus, Musnad Ahmad, for example, has over 30,000 hadiths—but this count includes texts that are repeated in order to record slight variations within the text or within the chains of narrations. Identifying the narrators of the various texts, comparing their narrations of the same texts to identify both the soundest reporting of a text and the reporters who are most sound in their reporting occupied experts of hadith throughout the 2nd century. In the 3rd century of Islam (from 225/840 to about 275/889),{{#tag:ref|The earliest book, Bukhari's Sahih was composed by 225/840 since he states that he spent sixteen years composing it (''Hady al-Sari'', introduction to ''Fath al-Bari'', p. 489, Lahore: ''Dar Nashr al-Kutub al-Islamiya'', 1981/1401) and also that he showed it to Yahya ibn Ma'in<ref>(''Hady al-Sari'', introduction to ''Fath al-Bari'', p. 8</ref> who died in 233. Nasa'i, the last to die of the authors of the six books, died in 303/915. He probably completed this work a few decades before his death: by 275 or so.|group=Note}} [[Hadith terminology#Ṣaḥīḥ|hadith experts]] composed brief works recording a selection of about two- to five-thousand such texts which they felt to have been most soundly documented or most widely referred to in the Muslim scholarly community.{{#tag:ref|Counting multiple narrations of the same texts as a single text, the number of hadiths each author has recorded roughly as follows: Bukhari (as in Zabidi's ''Mukhtasar'' of Bukhari's book) 2134, Muslim (as in Mundhiri's ''Mukhtasar'' of Muslim's book) 2200, Tirmidhi 4000, Abu Dawud 4000, Nasa'i 4800, Ibn Majah 4300. There is considerable overlap amongst the six books so that Ibn al-Athir's ''Jami' al-Usul'', which gathers together the hadiths texts of all six books deleting repeated texts, has about 9500 hadiths.|group=Note}} The 4th and 5th century saw these six works being commented on quite widely. This auxiliary literature has contributed to making their study the place of departure for any serious study of hadith. In addition, Bukhari and Muslim in particular, claimed that they were collecting only the soundest of sound hadiths. These later scholars tested their claims and agreed to them, so that today, they are considered the most reliable collections of hadith.<ref>''Muqaddimah Ibn al-Salah'', p. 160 Dar al-Ma’aarif edition</ref> Toward the end of the 5th century, [[Ibn al-Qaisarani]] formally standardized the Sunni canon into [[Al-Kutub al-Sittah|six pivotal works]], a delineation which remains to this day.<ref>[[Ignác Goldziher]], ''Muslim Studies'', vol. 2, p. 240. [[Halle (Saale)|Halle]], 1889-1890. {{ISBN|0-202-30778-6}}</ref><ref>Scott C. Lucas, ''Constructive Critics, Ḥadīth Literature, and the Articulation of Sunnī Islam'', p. 106. [[Leiden]]: [[Brill Publishers]], 2004.</ref><ref>[[Ibn Khallikan]]'s Biographical Dictionary, translated by [[William McGuckin de Slane]]. [[Paris]]: Oriental Translation Fund of Great Britain and Ireland. Sold by [[Institut de France]] and [[Royal Library of Belgium]]. Vol. 3, p. 5.</ref>

Over the centuries, several different categories of collections have emerged. Some are more general, such as the ''muṣannaf'', the ''muʿjam'', and the ''jāmiʿ'', and some more specific, characterized either by the subjects covered, such as the ''sunan'' (restricted to legal-liturgical traditions), or by''their''s composition, such as the [[Forty hadith|''arbaʿīniyyāt'']] (collections of forty hadiths).<ref name="siddiqi">Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi, ''Hadith Literature'', Cambridge, Islamic Texts Society, 1993, edited and revised by Abdal Hakim Murad.</ref>