Abstract: Recording the Sunnah in the early days of Islam Recording the Sunnah in the early days of Islam is one of the controversial issues about which doubts were raised and several articles were presented. The present article displays the main doubts about this issue, discusses several terms related to it and points out different views of Muslim scholars towards hadiths that authorize or prohibit recording the Sunnah, classifying them according to their relation to Sciences of Hadith. The Article reaches the conclusion that hadiths pertaining to the issue of recording the Sunnah belong to "Mukhtalif al-Hadith", that recording the Sunnah was authorized by the Prophet and what was reported to the contrary was the exceptional rather than the rule; it was due to specific reasons and circumstances. Finally, the article classifies stages of recording Hadith materials into three stages: writing of Hadith, compiling of Hadith and codification of Hadith. While the first stage was at the time of the Prophet , the second stage started directly after His death, where some individual efforts in collecting Hadith materials appeared, and the third stage commenced at the first half of the second century of Islam.
أستاذ الحديث وعلومه