Verily the aḥādīth enable the pious to beautify their actions through them. And it is not possible to completely moderate one’s actions and characteristics except by combining between the ḥadīth and Qurʾān. Allāh mentions in the Qurʾān:
Now if it was not for the aḥādīth then the blessed life of the Prophet ﷺ would not be documented and would be lost. As Allāh mentions in the Qurʾān:
In the beginning stages the ṣaḥābah would not write the ḥadīth down as the Prophet ﷺ forbade it1 out of fear that it would not be easily distinguished from the Qurʾān. Secondly, during this period, memorisation was more prominent due to a lot of the people being illiterate2.
The collecting of ḥadīth and writing and preserving it was an act which was done during the time of the Prophet ﷺ. It can be found in the books of history, some of the names of scriptures, writings and collections which were specifically devoted for sunan3.
They would show these writings to the people when they gathered. And the scripture of Hammām ibn Munabbih, the companion of Abū Hurayrah, is from one of the oldest writings which can be found.
ʿUrwah ibn Zubayr narrates that the leader of the believers, ʿUmar bin al-Khaṭṭāb, intended to write the ḥadīth down so he consulted with the companions of the Prophet ﷺ. They advised him to have it written down, so ʿUmar intended to have this done immediately; however, he says “Indeed I intended to have the sunan written down, however I remembered a people before you who wrote down the book of Allāh and stumbled upon it, and thereafter left the book of Allāh”, therefore he did not have the sunan written down6.
ʿUmar bin ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, the khalīfah of the muslims in his time, also intended to have the sunan written down like his grandfather ʿUmar bin al-Khaṭṭāb. During this time the fear of confusing the Qurʾān with the ḥadīth had been removed. There was an abundance of ḥuffāẓ, and a lot of muslims had spread throughout the lands and there was certainty in that which Allāh had promised and informed them.
ʿUmar bin ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz wrote to one of the senior scholars of ḥadīth of his time, Abū Bakr bin Muḥammad bin Ḥazm, ordering him to write down and make a collection of aḥādīth. This was because he feared people leaving the sunnah as well as losing the ʿulamāʾ. Thus the ḥadīth started to be formally gathered under the rule of ʿUmar bin ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz7.
Towards the latter era of the tābiʿīn the writing of āthār was found, as was akhbār being organised into chapters. One of the foremost collectors of ḥadīth in this manner was Rabīʿ ibn al-Ṣabīḥ and Saʿīd bin Abī ʿArūbah8.
There are three ways to preserve aḥādīth:
How the documentation, authentication and codification of ḥadīth unfolded from the first century onwards through the work of jarḥ-and-taʿdīl scholars.
A biographical sketch of Imām al-Bukhārī: his lineage, character, scholarly competence, teachers, students, madhhab, writings, and death.
The opening ḥadīth of *Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī*, narrated by ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb, on the principle that deeds are judged by their intentions, with notes on the Bukhārī isnād.
The opening ḥadīth of Imām al-Nawawī's Forty: actions are judged by their intentions, and a person has of an act only what they intended by it.
