The methodology by which hadith are weighed and graded.
The classical sciences of ḥadīth, also known as 'ulūm al-ḥadīth or muṣṭalaḥ al-ḥadīth. Notes cover the categories of narrators, the gradations of soundness (ṣaḥīḥ, ḥasan, ḍaʿīf, and the technical sub-classes), the conditions of authentication, and the foundational works of the tradition — Nukhbat al-Fikr, the Bayqūniyyah, Nuzhat al-Naẓar, and Taysīr Muṣṭalaḥ al-Ḥadīth.
This is a discipline that rewards careful reading: the terminology is precise, the gradations are real, and small differences in language carry large consequences in practice.
2 series
A working summary in the sciences of ḥadīth — terminology, gradations of soundness, and the foundational distinctions of the muṣṭalaḥ tradition, with clarification of Ḥanafī-school usage.
Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī's terse summary of the disciplines of hadith.
The verb that opens almost every chain in Muqaddimah Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ reads two ways, ruwwīnā (passive) or rawaynā (active), and the choice encodes how the report reached the narrator.
An English study of Shaykh Ibrāhīm al-Ṣabīḥī's monograph on one of the most discussed isnāds in ḥadīth literature: the chain of ʿAmr ibn Shuʿayb from his father from his grandfather.
Three classical positions on whether reading ḥadīth to the shaykh (qirāʾah) is equal, superior, or inferior to hearing it directly (samāʿ).
Why classical muḥaddithīn distinguished between ḥaddathanā (direct samāʿ) and akhbaranā (qirāʾah on the shaykh), and how the convention varied by region.
Ibn Ḥajar's symbol system in Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb, indicating which of the six major ḥadīth collections (and related works) record each narrator.
How Ibn Ḥajar's Taqrīb al-Tahdhīb groups narrators of the six canonical ḥadīth collections into twelve generational classes (ṭabaqāt).
A bibliographical survey of the major classical works in al-jarḥ wa al-taʿdīl, from the earliest rijāl compilations to Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī.
The complete Arabic matn of Ibn al-Mulaqqin's al-Tadhkirah fī ʿulūm al-ḥadīth with English translation, covering 73 categories of ḥadīth terminology.
From the Prophet's prohibition on writing to the formal codification under ʿUmar bin ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz: how the ḥadīth corpus was preserved.
An introduction to the six universally accepted books of Sunni ḥadīth and the criteria each compiler used for inclusion.
A short reference to the principal ḥadīth-collection genres: ṣaḥīḥ, jāmiʿ, sunan, musnad, mustakhraj, muṣannaf, mustadrak, aṭrāf, juzʾ, muʿjam and tajrīd.
An overview of the definition, etymology, classification, and virtue of ḥadīth, with the distinction between ḥadīth qudsī and the Qurʾān.
How muḥaddithīn distinguish between ḥadīths that share narrators across the Ṣaḥīḥayn and those that share only matn.
