Science of Hadith (An Introduction)

Muslims generally believe that the Quran has been preserved intact and pure by Allah Himself. What is often forgotten is that this preservation necessarily includes the Sunnah of the Prophet ﷺ — the practical example of how the Quran is implemented.

Hadith is Sunnah in record. How that immense body of literature was preserved and handed down by the Muhaddithun is an extremely wide and complex study.

What the Treatise Covers

• The classifications of hadith — sahih, hasan, da'if and their subdivisions
• The isnad, the chain of transmission, and why it matters
• The nature of the matn, the text itself
• The study of the reporters — how a narrator's reliability is assessed

Why a Short Book Is the Right Format

Because most readers do not need to become hadith critics. They need to understand what a grading means when they see one, why scholars disagree about a narration, and how the material they read every day was verified.

This treatise gives that in a form a general reader will finish, published with English readers specifically in mind.

Related Reading

• Al-Ba'ith Al-Hathith — the classical text on hadith sciences, in Arabic
• Imam Al-Bukhari — the life of Imam Al-Bukhari
• Muhammad Nasiruddin Al-Albani — Shaykh Al-Albani, the modern era's foremost hadith scholar