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Sayings (Hadiths) of Prophet Muhammad
Collection of Hadith : third stage
With the passing of the generation that had seen and heard the Holy Prophet directly, the work of the collection of hadith entered upon a third stage. There were no more reports to be investigated from different persons, and the whole of hadith was now the property of the different teachers who taught at different centres.
There is no doubt that there was no single centre at which the whole store of the knowledge of hadith could be obtained, for the Companions of the Holy Prophet had spread far and wide. But in the second stage hadith had undoubtedly passed from individual into public possession, and, therefore, in the third stage the whole of hadith could be learned by repairing to the different centres instead of enquiring about it from individuals. At this stage, moreover, the writing of hadith became more common.
The large number of the students of hadith at the different centres, having abundance of material to digest, to which was also added the further difficulty of remembering the names of the transmitters, sought aid from the pen, so that the work might be easier.
By this time writing had become general and writing. material abundant. Moreover, there was now no fear of the Hadith being confused with the Qur’an. It must, however, be remembered that at this stage hadith was written merely as an aid to memory; the mere fact that a written hadith was found among the manuscripts of a person was no evidence of its authenticity, which could only be established by tracing it to a reliable transmitter.
Umar ibn ‘Abd al-’Aziz, commonly known as ‘Umar II, the Umayyad Caliph, who ruled towards the close of the first century of Hijra, was the first man who issued definite orders to the effect that written collections of hadith should be made. He is reported to have written to Abu Bakr ibn Hazm: “See whatever saying of the Holy Prophet can be found, and write it down, for I fear the loss of knowledge and the disappearance of the learned men; and do not accept anything but the hadith of the Holy Prophet; and people should make knowledge public and should sit in companies, so that he who does not know should come to know, for knowledge does not disappear until it is concealed from the public" (Bu. 3 34).
The importance of this incident lies in the fact that the Caliph himself took an interest in the collection of hadith, the Umayyads generally having stood aloof from the great work up to this time. Abü Bakr ibn Hazm was the Caliph’s Governor at Madina, and there is evidence that similar letters were written to other centres (FB. I, p. 174).
But ‘Umar II died after a short reign of two and a half years, and his successor does not seem to have interested himself at all in the matter. Even if a collection had been made in pursuance of these orders, which is very doubtful, no copy has reached us.6 But the work was taken up independently of government patronage in the next century, and this brings us down to the fourth stage in the collection of hadith.
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