Editing Hadith (section)

==Studies and authentication==
{{Further|Hadith studies|Hadith sciences}}
The two major aspects of a hadith are the text of the report (the ''matn''), which contains the actual narrative, and the chain of narrators (the ''isnad''), which documents the route by which the report has been transmitted.{{sfn|Brown|2009|p=4}}<ref name="H-EoI"/> The isnad was an effort to document that a hadith actually came from Muhammad, and Muslim scholars from the eighth century to the present have never ceased to repeat the mantra "The isnad is part of the religion—if not for the isnad, whoever wanted could say whatever they wanted."{{sfn|Brown|2009|p=4}} The ''isnad'' literally means "support", and it is so named because hadith specialists rely on it to determine the [[hadith terminology|authenticity or weakness of a hadith]].<ref>''Tadrib al-Rawi'', vol. 1, pp. 39–41 with abridgement.</ref> The ''isnad'' consists of a chronological list 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 to hear hadith were the companions who preserved it and then conveyed it to those after them. Then the generation following them received it, thus conveying it to those after them and so on. So a 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 would then say, "I heard someone say, 'I heard a Companion say, 'I heard the Prophet&nbsp;...<nowiki>''</nowiki>" and so on.<ref>''Ilm al-Rijal wa Ahimiyatih'', by Mualami, p. 16, Dar al-Rayah.</ref>

Authenticity of a hadith is primarily verified by its chain of transmission (''isnad'') in classical Islam. Because a chain of transmission can be a forgery, the status of authenticity given by Muslim scholars are not generally accepted by Orientalists or historians, who largely consider hadith to be unverifiable. [[Ignác Goldziher]] demonstrated that several hadiths do not fit the time of Muhammad chronologically and content-wise.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Schacht |first=Joseph |author-link=Joseph Schacht |title=Problems of Modern Islamic Legislation |journal=Studia Islamica |publisher=Brill |year=1960 |issue=12 |pages=99–129 |doi=10.2307/1595112 |jstor=1595112}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Goldziher |first=Ignaz |author-link=Ignác Goldziher |url=https://real.mtak.hu/125956/1/GI_Muhammedanische_Studien_708_058_Vol_2.pdf |title=Muhammedanische studien |year=1890 |language=de |trans-title=Muslim studies}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Boodhoo |first=FK |url=https://www.academia.edu/download/62314653/The_Impact_of_Western_Criticisms_of_Hadith_on_Muslim_Scholarships_and_the_Proposals_for_Reform20200309-17459-xyldga.pdf |title=The Impact of Western Criticisms of Hadith on Muslim Scholarship |pages=4, 5 |language=en |quote=Among the various works published on the subject by Western scholars, two major works stood out and became the basis of future Western studies on hadith. The first one was “Muhammedanische Studien” (Muslim Studies) by Ignaz Goldziher in 1889 and 1890, and the second was “The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence” by Joseph Schacht published in 1950. Goldziher adopted a critical and historical-analytical approach to the study of hadith (Alshehri 2014). According to him there was no scientific guarantee to support the proposition that hadith reflected the actual words, action or consent of the Prophet. His studies on the subject led him to conclude that the bulk of hadith in existence was nothing more than the result of socio-religious growth that occurred in early Muslim society. According to Goldziher (1971) ,“hadith will not serve as a document for the history of the infancy of Islam, but rather as a reflection of the tendencies which appeared in the community during the mature ages of its development.” Among the issues that led Goldziher to such conclusion was the fact that there were fewer hadith during the early stages of Islam compared to the later eras, and there were fewer narrations attributed to the senior companions as compared to the younger ones. Since a large portion of the traditions originated after the death of the Prophet and the companions, he concluded that there was an early large-scale fabrication of hadith by later generations to fulfil the legal need of the growing Muslim society and to fill in legal gaps which the Quran was not able to do (Goldziher 1973). }}{{Dead link|date=November 2024 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref> As a result, Orientalists generally regard hadiths as having little value in understanding the life and times of the historical Muhammad but are instead valuable for understanding later theological developments in the Muslim community.<ref name=":0" /><ref>Lutz Berger "Islamische Theologie", Facultas Verlags- und Buchhandels AG 2010 isbn 978-3-8252-3303-7 p. 29</ref> According to [[Bernard Lewis]], "In the early Islamic centuries there could be no better way of promoting a cause, an opinion, or a faction than to cite an appropriate action or utterance of the Prophet."<ref name="EMHME-80" /> To fight these forgeries, the elaborate tradition of [[hadith sciences]] was devised<ref name="EMHME-80">{{cite book |last1=Lewis|first1=Bernard |title=The End of Modern History in the Middle East |date=2011|publisher=Hoover Institution Press |pages=79–80|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tGzsn4snUyEC&q=hadith+bernard+lewis&pg=PA80|access-date=28 March 2018|isbn=9780817912963 }}</ref> to authenticate hadith known as ''ilm al jarh'' or ''ilm al dirayah<ref name="EMHME-80" />''<ref name=50-Nasr>Nasr, S.H. ''Ideals and Realities of Islam'', 1966, p.80</ref> Hadith science use a number of methods of evaluation developed by early Muslim scholars in determining the veracity of reports attributed to Muhammad. This is achieved by:
*the individual narrators involved in its transmission, 
*the scale of the report's transmission, 
*analyzing the text of the report, and 
*the routes through which the report was transmitted.

Based on these criteria, various classifications of hadith have been developed. The earliest comprehensive work in hadith science was [[Ramahurmuzi|Abu Muhammad al-Ramahurmuzi's]] ''al-Muhaddith al-Fasil'', while another significant work was [[Hakim al-Nishaburi|al-Hakim al-Naysaburi]]'s ''Ma‘rifat ‘ulum al-hadith''. Ibn al-Salah's [[Introduction to the Science of Hadith|''ʻUlum al-hadith'']] is considered the standard classical reference on hadith science.<ref name="H-EoI"/> Some schools of Hadith methodology apply as many as sixteen separate tests.<ref name="Shafi"/>

In the Shia school of thought, there are two fundamental viewpoints of hadith: The [[Usuli]] view and the [[Akhbari]] view. The Usuli scholars emphasize the importance of scientific examination of hadiths through [[ijtihad]] while the Akhbari scholars consider all hadiths from the four Shia books as authentic
.<ref>{{cite book |last1=al-Kulayni |first1=Muhammad ibn Ya'qub |title=Al-Kafi |date=2015 |publisher=Islamic Seminary Incorporated |location=New York |isbn=9780991430864 |edition=Volume 6}}</ref>

===Biographical evaluation===
{{Main|Biographical evaluation}}
Biographical analysis (''[[Biographical evaluation|‘ilm al-rijāl]]'', lit. "science of people", also "science of ''Asma Al-Rijal'' or ''‘ilm al-jarḥ wa al-taʻdīl''" ("science of discrediting and accrediting"), 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 (''thiqāt'') of the transmitter is assessed. It is also determined 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.<ref>Berg (2000) p. 8</ref><ref name="Shafi">{{cite web |last1=Shafi |first1=Mohammad |title=The HADITH - How it was Collected and Compiled |url=http://www.daralislam.org/portals/0/Publications/TheHADITHHowitwasCollectedandCompiled.pdf |website=Dar al-Islam |access-date=26 October 2019 |archive-date=1 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191101075824/http://www.daralislam.org/portals/0/Publications/TheHADITHHowitwasCollectedandCompiled.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> Examples of biographical dictionaries include: [[Abd al-Ghani al-Maqdisi]]'s ''[[Al-Kamal fi Asma' al-Rijal]]'', Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani's ''Tahdhīb al-Tahdhīb'' and [[al-Dhahabi]]'s ''Tadhkirat al-huffaz''.<ref>See:
* Robinson (2003) pp. 69–70;
* Lucas (2004) p. 15</ref>

===Scale of transmission===
Hadith on matters of importance needed to come through a number of independent chains,<ref name="Shafi"/> this was known as the scale of transmission. Reports that passed through many reliable transmitters in many ''isnad'' up until their collection and transcription are known as ''[[Hadith terminology#Mutawatir|mutawātir]]''. 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 ''[[Hadith terminology#Ahaad|aahad]]'', and are of several different types.<ref name="H-EoI"/>

===Analyzing text===
According to Muhammad Shafi, Hadith whose isnad has been scrutinized then have their text or ''matn'' examined for:
*contradiction of the Quran;<ref name="Shafi"/>
*contradiction of reliable hadith;<ref name="Shafi"/>
*making sense, being logical;<ref name="Shafi"/>
*being a report about the importance of an individual (or individuals) which is transmitted only through their supporters or family, and which is not supported by reports from other independent channels.<ref name="Shafi"/>

===Terminology: admissible and inadmissible hadiths===
{{Main|Hadith terminology}}
Having been evaluated, hadith may be categorized. Two categories are: 
*''ṣaḥīḥ'' (sound, authentic), 
*''[[Hadith terminology#Ḍaʻīf|ḍaʿīf]]'' (weak)
Other classifications include: 
*''[[Hadith terminology#Ḥasan|ḥasan]]'' (good), which refers to an otherwise ''ṣaḥīḥ'' report suffering from minor deficiency, or a weak report strengthened due to numerous other corroborating reports; 
*''[[Hadith terminology#Mawḍūʻ|mawḍūʿ]]'' (fabricated), 
*''[[Hadith terminology#Munkar|munkar]]'' (denounced) which is a report that is rejected due to the presence of an unreliable transmitter contradicting another more reliable narrator.<ref>See:
* "Hadith," ''Encyclopedia of Islam Online'';
* "Hadith," ''Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim world''.</ref> 
Both ''sahīh'' and ''hasan'' reports are considered acceptable for usage in Islamic legal discourse.