NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Isnad

The isnad (Arabic اسناد or in Qur'anic era Arabic اسند) are the citations or "backings" that establish the legitimacy of the hadith, which are the sayings of Muhammad, Prophet of Islam. Arabic (Ø§Ù„Ø¹Ø±Ø¨ÙŠØ© al-arabiyyah, or less formally arabi) is the largest member of the Semitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family (classification: South Central Semitic) and is closely related to Hebrew and Aramaic. ... A citation is a credit or reference to another document or source which documents both influence and authority. ... Hadith (Arabic: , Arabic pl. ... Muhammad is a common male name for Muslims. ... Islam listen? (Arabic: al-islÄm) the submission to God is a monotheistic faith, one of the Abrahamic religions, and the worlds second largest religion. ...

After Muhammad's death in 632, Islam began to divide into factions based on different interpretations of his views. It became important to trace narrators to the source, and to investigate the reputation and reliability of that source for transmitting evidence - this developed into Ilm ar-rijal or the "science of biography". Events Abu Bakr becomes first caliph or Successor of the Prophet, leader of Islam Abu Bakr defeats Mosailima in the Battle of Akraba. ... Ilm ar-Rijal (Arabic) is the science of biography especially as practiced in Islam, where it was first applied to the sira, the life of the Prophet Muhammad. ...

An isnad is in the form "A said that B said that C wrote (in a lost work) that D read (in a work known to exist but also lost) that E said that Muhammad had said...", where A, B, C, D, E were known figures with known histories. The focus of these scholars was to determine if in fact these individuals could have met, under what circumstances or social pressures, if translation were involved, if lost records are involved were they actually likely to have been lost, etc., and therefore to come to their own conclusions about the validity.

Scholars emerged who devoted their lives to checking each link in the chain. Questions they asked about the isnad included:

These scholars categorized literally millions of hadith as authentic, agreeable, weak, narrated by a weak source, missing a transmitter, provably false, etc. There are six well-known collections of authentic hadith, each named after its compiler: Sunna redirects to here, which can also refer to Sunne or Frau Sonne, a Scandinavian sun goddess, also known as Sol. ... The Quran (Arabic: al-qurÄn literally the recitation; also called Al QurÄn Al KarÄ«m or The Noble Quran; or transliterated Quran, Koran, and less commonly Alcoran) is the holy book of Islam. ...

Although each scholar came to different conclusions about authenticity or did not review all the same reported traditions, the ability to compare them has been useful in itself. Since the hadith and sira, Muhammad's life of moral example, constitute the sunnah or "path" Muslims are to take in this world, the ability to validate what he really said is taken seriously - minor differences in authenticity claims do not matter as much as removing a huge quantity of misleading or doubtful information, in the view of Muslims. Sahih Bukhari is a hadith collection written by Muhammad al-Bukhari. ... Sahih Muslim is a collection of sayings and deeds of Prophet Muhammad (also known as the sunnah). ... This article is not about the group of British engineering companies called Sira; see Sira (group of British companies). ... Sunna redirects to here, which can also refer to Sunne or Frau Sonne, a Scandinavian sun goddess, also known as Sol. ...

Isnad was influential in the development of disciplined scientific citation as early Muslim philosophy developed and applied Muslim disciplines like isnad and ijtihad and ijma to the natural world. Some claim this resulted in the breakthroughs in early Muslim medicine and the Mutazilite school of scientists. However, the capacity to cite prior authority so reliably was probably also influential in the rise of the Asharite school, which led to the classical fiqh and taqlid "blind imitation" of prior jurists, and ultimately limited Muslim sciences. Scientific citation is the process by which conclusions of previous scientists are used to justify experimental procedures, apparatus, goals or theses. ... Early Muslim philosophy can be starkly divided into four clear sets of influences: First, the life of Muhammad or sira which generated both the Quran (revelation) and hadith (his daily utterances and discourses on social and legal matters), during which philosophy was defined by acceptance or rejection of his... Ijtihad is a technical term of the Islamic law that describes the process of making a legal decision by independent interpretation of the sources of the law, the Quran and the Sunna. ... IjmÄÊ¿ (Ø¥Ø¬Ù…Ø§Ø¹) is an Arabic tern referring to the consensus of the ummah, the community of Muslims, those practicing Islam, or of the ulema, those learned in the relevant topic. ... Prophetic Medicine: Prophetic Medicine (al-tibb) was a genre of medical writing intended as an alternative to the Greek-based medical system (See:Galen). ... Mutazili (Arabic المعتزلة) is an extinct theological school of thought within Islam. ... The Asharite school of early Muslim philosophy were instrumental in drastically changing the direction of Islamic philosophy, separating its development drastically from that of philosophy in the Christian world. ... Taqlid literally means to follow (someone), to imitate. In Islamic legal terminology it means to follow a mujtahid in religious laws and commandment as he has derived them. ...

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