Introduction to the Science of Hadith

Introduction to
the Science of Hadith

Sample of older Arabic text
Author	Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ
Original title	Muqaddimah ibn al-Ṣalāḥ
Translator	Dr. Eerik Dickinson
Language	Arabic
Series	Great Books of Islamic Civilization
Subject	Science of hadith, hadith terminology and biographical evaluation
Publisher	Garnet Publishing Limited
Publication date	1236 CE/634 AH
Publication place	Syria
Published in English	2010
Pages	356
ISBN	1-85964-158-X

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Related topics Ahl al-Hadith Criticism Sheikh al-Hadith
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(Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ's) Introduction to the Science of Hadith (Arabic: مقدمة ابن الصلاح في علوم الحديث, romanized: Muqaddimah ibn al-Ṣalāḥ fī ‘Ulūm al-Ḥadīth) is a 13th-century book written by `Abd al-Raḥmān ibn `Uthmān al-Shahrazūrī, better known as Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ, which describes the Islamic discipline of the science of hadith, its terminology and the principles of biographical evaluation. A hadith is a recorded statement, action or approval of the Islamic prophet Muhammad which serves as the second source of legislature in Islamic law. The science of hadith that this work describes contains the principles with which a hadith specialist evaluates the authenticity of individual narrations.

The Introduction comprises 65 chapters, each covering a hadith related issue. The first 33 chapters describe the various technical terms of hadith terminology which describe the conditions of a hadith's authenticity, or acceptability as a basis for Islamic jurisprudence. The following chapters relate to the isnād, or chain of narration^{[broken anchor]}. Next are a series of chapters pertaining to the etiquette to be observed by hadith scholars and manners of transcription. The last chapters describe various issues relating to the narrators of hadith including naming conventions.

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ began the Introduction as a series of lectures he dictated to his students in Damascus ending in 1233. It has received considerable attention from subsequent authors who explained, abridged and set it to poetry and it became an example for latter books of its genre. The Introduction has been published a number of times in its original Arabic and has also been translated into English.^[1]