The Nature of the sources of the first compilatory works:

علوم قرآن و حدیث

Article 6, Volume 44, Issue 1 - Serial Number 88, June 2012   

Document Type: Research Article

DOI: 10.22067/naqhs.v44i1.7596

Author

Nuṣrat Nīlsāz^*

Abstract

One of the most important factors for the orientalists’ casting doubt on the authenticity of the tradition texts has for over one century been the verbal transmission of ḥadīth and widespread opposition to the writing of ḥadīth. Up to the 70’s of the twentieth century, the two main parties of dispute concerning the nature of the sources of early ḥadīth collections have been Goldziher and Sezgin, the first of whom stressed the orality of these sources and the second emphasized its being written. Gregor Schoeler has since the mid 80’s of the twentieth century up to now tried in various studies to reduce the contradiction between these two approaches. His theory on “the connection and bond between the oral and written transmission in the Islamic education system” has put an end to many of the disputes. The most important components of this theory are: special attention to the characteristics of education and learning system in the early Islamic centuries; distinction between the textbooks and the ordinary books; the publication way of the works and the role of narrators in this process; distinction between the heard (masmū‘) transmission and the oral transmission; distinction between the issue of authenticity and the sources as being written; explanation of the similarities,
differences, and the effect of various education systems on each other, study of the effects of the ḥadīth experts’ procedures on other fields of science; distinction between different methods of publishing religious documents, letters, poetry, and teachings.

Keywords

orientalists; Schoeler; authenticity of ḥadīth collections; oral transmission; written transmission