Hadith studies

Hadith studies is the academic study of hadith, a literature typically thought in Islamic religion to be a record of the words, actions, and the silent approval of the Islamic prophet Muhammad as transmitted through chains of narrators.

A major area of interest in hadith studies has been the degree to which hadith can be used as a reliable source for reconstructing the biography of Muhammad, in parallel to the Islamic discipline of the hadith sciences. Since the pioneering work of Ignaz Goldziher, the consensus has been that hadith are a more faithful source for understanding the religious, historical, and social developments in the first two centuries of Islam than they are a reliable record of Muhammad's life, especially concerning the formation of Islamic law, theology, and piety during the Umayyad and early Abbasid eras.

Among other reasons, historians are skeptical of understanding the historical Muhammad through hadith due to the late date for when the hadith compilations were made, the sentiment that their chains of transmission (isnad) were a secondary development, and the prevalence of falsified hadith. In addition, there has been skepticism concerning whether the methods of the hadith sciences can reliably discriminate between authentic and inauthentic hadith. Despite this, recent methodological developments by scholars like Harald Motzki have shown that some hadith can be traced as early as the late seventh or early eighth century.

While hadith studies was preoccupied with the question of authenticity during the twentieth century, the scope of the field today has broadened to address questions such as what role hadith played in the intellectual and social histories of Muslim societies.

Emergence of hadith

Hadith and Sunnah

The earliest schools and scholars of Islamic law—starting around a century and a half after the death of Muhammad—did not all agree on the importance of prophetic sunnah and its basis, the basis for which was the group of hadith ultimately attributed to Muhammad and his followers. Opinion ranged from prophetic hadith being one source of law among others (such as caliphal tradition or reports going back to Muhammad's followers), as was held by the ahl al-raʿy to outright rejection of hadith on the basis of their potentially tenuous historicity, as was held by the ahl al-kalām (referred to by some as "speculative theologians").

Hadith canonization

A sizable shift in practice in favor of the tradition of prophetic hadith and its basis for Islamic law (fiqh) came with al-Shāfiʿī (767–820 CE), founder of the Shafi'i school of law.