12 – Hadith – The Five Pillars

The Hadith is a collection of the sayings and deeds of the prophet Muhammad, particularly important in creating Islamic law and giving context to elements of the Quran. In Islamic fashion, this is more of a history exercise than a literary one, so there is no overarching narrative of the reports. In fact, many reports are found in multiple hadith collections. A standard hadith has two parts: 1.      The first is the isnad, or chain of reporters. It’s critical that the chain custody, so to speak, go back to a companion of the prophet. Like the canonization of the Gospels, this became necessary as people began to make things up to support a political or theological position. All hadith are now classified as sahih, hasan, or da’if. In English that’s sound, good and weak. 2.      The second part is the story itself, which is usually not too long.