The documentation of the Sunnah

"It is not hidden from you, brothers, the importance of the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him, as it is the second source of Islamic legislation and the second revelation. The Sunnah is the source interpreted by recitation and it is a book from Allah. It is the revelation worshipped by understanding its meaning without recitation. It is the purified Sunnah and it is the interpreter of the book of Allah, clarifying it. It is one of the most important sources of interpreting the book of Allah, so we must take care of it because it is the means to know what is correct about the Prophet, peace be upon him. Therefore, the people of Islam have been aware of it since the time of the honorable companions until our present day. Allah has appointed those who take care of and preserve this Sunnah from lies and distortions, as it is mentioned in the verse "Indeed, it is We who sent down the Quran, and indeed, We will be its guardian." This Sunnah is a revelation, as Allah Almighty said, "Nor does he speak from [his own] inclination. It is not but a revelation revealed." These imams were the ones who believed in Allah sincerely and were the victorious group, as Ibn Mahdi, may Allah have mercy on him, said, "If the people of Hadith are not the victorious group, then I do not know who they are." And Sheikh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah said, "The people of Hadith are the people of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and they are, brothers, the people of the Sunnah and the Hadith." I ask Allah to gather us and you with them. The Prophet, peace be upon him, ordered the writing of what was revealed from the Quran and took a book from the Companions for that. The Quran was written in its entirety in front of the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, on parchment, bones, stones, and palm branches. The verses of the Quran were revealed to the Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him, and the scribe of the revelation would write them in a specific place in a specific chapter. This continued until the death of the Prophet, peace be upon him, and the Quran was preserved, written and not missing anything, except in one compiled Quran. As for the Sunnah, it was not the same because it was not all recorded officially during the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him, as the Quran was, and the Prophet, peace be upon him, did not command his companions to do so."

The scholars have mentioned many reasons for not documenting the Sunnah during the prophetic era, including the fact that the Prophet (peace be upon him) lived among his companions for twenty-three years after the mission. Therefore, writing down all his words, statements, and actions posed a great deal of difficulty and hardship, which required a lot of time and effort from the companions. We also know that not all the companions were skilled in writing, as only a few of them were proficient in this skill. The focus of these writers from the companions was primarily on writing the Quran, rather than the Sunnah, in order to preserve it accurately without any alterations.

Another reason for not documenting the Sunnah was the fear of confusion among the general Muslims, as the Quran might become mixed with other sayings, especially during the early period when the revelation was not yet complete. Additionally, the Arabs at that time were primarily illiterate, relying on memory for preservation and recitation. The Quran was revealed in small, separate verses and chapters to facilitate memorization, while the Sunnah covered a wide range of events and aspects. If the Sunnah had been documented like the Quran, the companions would have struggled to memorize both, creating difficulty and hardship. Therefore, it was necessary for them to focus on the memorization, study, and understanding of the Quran. These are some of the reasons, among others, which the scholars have elaborated on to explain why the Sunnah was not documented during the prophetic era. This helps us understand the prohibition of writing it down, as mentioned in the authentic Hadith in Sahih Muslim, when the Prophet (peace be upon him) said: "Do not write down anything from me, and whoever has written something other than the Quran shall erase it."

This does not mean that nothing was written from the Sunnah in the time of the Prophet, peace be upon him. Authentic reports indicate that some of the Sunnah was indeed documented during the prophetic era. However, this documentation was done in a private manner and was not widespread among the people. The Prophet, peace be upon him, instructed his companions to write to Abu Shah, and he himself wrote letters to the kings and rulers inviting them to Islam. It is also established that some of the companions had their own private writings in which they documented what they had heard from the Prophet, such as the scrolls of Abdullah bin Amr bin al-As, which he called "the truthful." Furthermore, there were scrolls with Ali, may Allah be pleased with him, containing rulings on blood money and the release of captives. It is also established that the Prophet, peace be upon him, wrote letters to some of his governors and administrators, specifying their responsibilities regarding posts, the amount of alms, taxes, and blood money, among other issues, indicating the occurrence of documentation during his era. Therefore, when the Prophet, peace be upon him, passed away, the Sunnah was not documented in its entirety, as the Quran was.

Then the era of the rightly guided caliphs came, and they refrained from recording the Hadith in scrolls, out of fear that people might start considering them equivalent to the Quranic scrolls. They abstained from writing down the Sunnah for the duration of their caliphate. In fact, Umar, may Allah be pleased with him, initially contemplated the collection of the Sunnah. However, after seeking consultation from the Prophet's companions, and after praying for a month, he abandoned the idea, expressing his concern about the potential confusion between the Quran and the Sunnah. This opinion of Umar was appropriate for the people's situation at that time, as their familiarity with the Quran was still new, particularly among the newly converted non-Arabs. If the Sunnah had been documented, distributed, and studied extensively, it might have overshadowed the Quran, causing confusion among the people. This decision was not an oversight of the Hadith, as the people were still in a good state at that time, and their memorization capabilities were strong. The subsequent caliphs followed the example of Umar, and it is not known that they documented the Sunnah or instructed people to do so. Thus, the era of the companions passed with only a small portion of the Sunnah being documented, until the time of the righteous Caliph Umar ibn Abdul Aziz, who ordered the collection of the Hadith due to certain circumstances, after the nation had already preserved its Book and been granted security from confusing it with other sources of the Sunnah.

In the first century of the Hijri calendar, none of the caliphs issued orders to collect and document the Hadith, leaving it to the scholars and narrators to preserve and regulate it, along with some individual writings. This long period allowed for the concentration and preservation of the Quran in people's hearts, so that it was recited by everyone and known to both the public and the private, without any dispute or doubt in its verses. However, this long period also resulted in the departure of many of the companions and followers of the Prophet from the wars and conquests, spreading them in various regions, which allowed the people of desires and innovations, who appeared during this period, to increase their fabrication of the Prophet's Hadith and introduce into it what was not part of it to support their innovations and fulfill their deviance.

The spread of Islam and the expansion of the Islamic state led to the mingling of the Arabs with non-Arabs in different countries, resulting in a lack of control in the transmission of the Prophet's Hadith due to the weakness of the memorization among the people.

In the year 99 of the Hijra, the righteous caliph Umar bin Abdul Aziz took over the caliphate of the Muslims and, considering the circumstances that the nation was going through, he saw that it was necessary to start writing and documenting the Hadith to preserve it from loss and distortion, as the obstacle that prevented the documentation of Hadith had been removed, and the interest of the Muslims now required the collection and documentation of the Hadith.

He wrote to his officials and governors ordering them to do so, sending a message to Abu Bakr ibn Hazm - his official and judge in Al-Madina - saying, "Look for the Hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and write it down, for I fear the loss of knowledge and the departure of scholars." He also asked him to write down what Umm Amrah bint Abd al-Rahman al-Ansariyah and al-Qasim bin Muhammad bin Abi Bakr had. He wrote to the scholars of the Muslims in different regions to look for the Hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) and gather it. Imam Muhammad bin Muslim bin Shihab al-Zuhri, one of the famous scholars, and the scholar of the people of Al-Hijaz and Al-Sham, who died in the year 124 AH, was among those who received the message. He responded to Umar bin Abdul Aziz's request by gathering the Hadith of the people of Al-Madina and presenting it to him. Umar then sent a notebook from his notebooks to every land.

This was the first attempt to collect and document the Hadith comprehensively and meticulously. Imam Zuhri's documentation of the Sunnah was a collection of what he had heard from the companions without classification, and it may have been mixed with the statements of the companions and the fatwas of the followers. This is in line with the nature of the beginnings of any new matter. In this way, Imam Zuhri paved the way for the scholars and authors who followed him and laid the foundation for documenting the Sunnah in specific books.

Then the movement of writing became active after that, and it started to evolve and flourish, with the cooperation of the imams and scholars in various regions. Ibn Juraij wrote in Mecca, Malik and Ibn Ishaq wrote in Medina, Saeed bin Abi Aruba, Ar-Rabi' bin Subayh, and Hammad bin Salama wrote in Basra, Sufyan ath-Thawri wrote in Kufa, Abu Amr Al-Awza'i wrote in Sham, Abdullah bin Al-Mubarak wrote in Khorasan, Ma'mar wrote in Yemen, and other imams. Their method of writing was to collect the hadiths of each chapter of knowledge separately, and then combine these chapters into one comprehensive book, mentioning the statements of the companions and the followers. Therefore, the earliest compilations in this era carried titles like "Musannaf," "Muwatta," and "Jami'."

Then came the third century, and a new phase of recording the Sunnah emerged, which was to single out the hadiths of the Messenger of Allah - peace be upon him - in the compilation without including the statements of the companions and the followers. They authored the Musnads that gathered the hadiths of each companion separately, without considering the unity of the subject, such as the Musnad of Imam Ahmad, the Musnad of Ishaq bin Rahawayh, and the Musnad of Uthman bin Abi Shaybah, among other Musnads. These Musnads did not only focus on collecting authentic hadiths, but also included authentic and non-authentic ones, making it challenging for anyone to benefit from them or to comprehend the hadiths of a specific issue, except for the imams of this field. This led the Imam of the scholars in his time, Muhammad bin Ismail al-Bukhari, to take a new direction in authoring, focusing only on authentic hadiths, and thus he authored his famous book "Sahih al-Bukhari." Following his example, his contemporary and student, Imam Muslim bin al-Hajjaj al-Qushayri, authored his famous Sahih, known as "Sahih Muslim." They both arranged their Sahihs according to the chapters of jurisprudence to facilitate access for scholars and jurists when seeking a specific ruling. These two imams deserve credit, after Allah, in paving the way for the seeker of hadith to access authentic hadiths through the easiest means possible.

They were followed in authoring on the chapters of jurisprudence by many Imams, whether contemporaries or those who came after them. After them, the famous four Sunan were compiled, which are the Sunan of Abu Dawood, An-Nasa'i, At-Tirmidhi, and Ibn Majah. However, these Imams did not adhere to authenticity as the two Imams Bukhari and Muslim did. Therefore, in these compilations, authentic and non-authentic narrations were found, although the authentic ones prevailed.

The scholars of the third century of the Hijrah considered it the most splendid and happiest era of the Sunnah in terms of compilation and documentation. In this century, the six books that the Ummah later relied on were written. The Imams of Hadith appeared during this time, and the journey of seeking Hadith knowledge became active. For this reason, many of the people of knowledge considered this century the dividing line between the earlier and later generations of Hadith critics.

By the end of this century, the era of compilation and innovation in authoring almost came to an end. The role of scholars in the following centuries was limited to summarizing, refining, organizing, correcting, and supplementing, with their focus being on written books, and oral narration became scarce among them.

From the aforementioned, it becomes clear to us that the documentation of the prophetic Hadith went through regular stages and successive phases, ensuring its preservation and protection from distortion and loss. The collection and documentation of Hadith had the greatest impact in facilitating the path for independent reasoning and inference. Through this, we realize the immense effort exerted by the Imams in compiling the Sunnah and categorizing it, leaving us with a great legacy in dozens of compiled works and collections, making this Ummah possess the richest heritage known to humanity. May Allah reward the Imams of Islam with the best reward.