was need for it, written down. The last-mentioned incident affords the clearest testimony that, whatever the Companions heard from the Holy Prophet, they tried to keep in their memory, for how else could an order be given for the writing of a sermon which had been delivered orally?
It is, however, a fact that the sayings of the Holy Prophet were not generally written, and memory was the chief means of their preservation. The Holy Prophet sometimes did object to the writing down of his sayings.
Abū Hurairah is reported to have said: “The Holy Prophet of God came to us while we were writing ḥadīth and said: What is this that you are writing? We said: Sayings which we hear from thee. He said: What! a book other than the Book of God?” Now the disapproval in this case clearly shows fear lest his sayings be mixed up with the revealed word of the Holy Qur’ān, though there was nothing essentially wrong in writing these down nor did the Holy Prophet ever forbid this being done. On the other hand, as late as the conquest of Makkah, we find him giving orders himself for the writing down of a certain saying at the request of a hearer. He also wrote letters, and treaties were put down in writing too, which shows that he never meant that the writing of anything besides the Holy Qur’ān was illegal. What he feared as the report shows, was that if his sayings were written down generally like the Holy Qur’ān, the two might get mixed up, and the purity of the text of the Holy Qur’ān might be affected.
Memory was by no means an unreliable mode for the preservation of Ḥadīth, for the Holy Qur’ān itself was safely preserved in the memory of the Companions of the Holy Prophet in addition to being committed to writing. In fact, had the Holy Qur’ān been simply preserved in writing, it could not have been handed down intact to future generations. The aid of memory was invoked to make the purity of the Text doubly sure. The Arab had a wonderfully retentive