
The 'hadith' the sayings attributed to the Prophet Muhammad form a sacred literature which for the Muslims ranks second in importance only to the Qur'an itself As a source of law ethics & doctrine the vast corpus of 'hadith' continue to exercise decisive influence Islamic scholarship has hence devoted immense efforts to gathering & classifying the 'hadith' & ensuring their authenticity This book is the only introduction in English which presents all the aspects of the subject It explains the origin of the literature the evolution of the 'isnad' system the troubled relationship between scholars & the state the problem of falsification & the gradual development of a systematic approach to the material This edition is a fully revised & updated version of the original which was first published in 1961 to considerable scholarly acclaim Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi was Professor of Islamic Culture at the University of Calcutta