Isnād-cum-matn analysis (ICMA) is a method in hadith studies that seeks to date hadith by identifying how variation in the text or content (matn) of a hadith correlates with the variation in the listed chain of transmitters (isnād) across multiple versions of the same report.[1] ICMA enables a construction of a chronology of the textual development and transmission of hadith reports by reconstructing older versions and dating them on the basis of the time at which the transmitters of older versions were active; this may also allow for a reconstruction of the original version of a tradition at the common link of the versions of the tradition found across multiple sources.[2]
Some consider ICMA the most reliable method at-present for studying hadith[3][4] and the literature on the subject has become "vast"[5] with the method being employed on a wide-scale since the second half of the 1990s.[6] More recently, ICMA has been combined with form criticism, textual criticism, and geographical analysis to more exactly pinpoint the origins and dissemination of the tradition beyond the reconstructed version at the common link, which when applied alone, is the temporal limit of how early a source can be dated by ICMA. In addition, these developments enable a reconstruction of the wording of the ur-text (or the original wording) of the tradition at the common link, as opposed to prior approaches, which were only able to reconstruct the gist of the tradition at the common link.[7][8]