from the lips of the Holy Prophet himself, until she was fully satisfied as to its meaning. ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Umar and ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Abbās are two other Companions who were specially engaged in the work of preserving and transmitting the knowledge of the Holy Qur’ān and the Ḥadīth as also was ‘Abd Allāh ibn ‘Amr who used to write down the sayings of the Holy Prophet. And in addition to these, every Companion did his utmost to preserve such of his words and deeds as came to his knowledge. ‘Umar who resided about three miles from Madīnah, had made arrangements with a neighbour so that each remained in the company of the Holy Prophet on alternate days, in order to report to the other what happened in his absence.14 And, most important of all, the Holy Prophet had repeatedly laid an obligation on everyone of his followers to transmit his words to others: “Let him who is present deliver to him who is absent”15 is the concluding sentence of many of his most important utterances all of which afford a clear proof that the work of preservation and transmission of the practice and sayings of the Holy Prophet had begun in his lifetime. This was the first stage in the collection of the Ḥadīth.
With the Holy Prophet’s death, the work of the collection of Ḥadīth entered a second stage. Every case that came up for decision had now to be referred either to the Holy Qur’ān or to some judgment or saying of the Holy Prophet, which judgments or sayings, therefore, obtained a wide reputation. There are numerous cases on record in which a right was claimed on the basis of a judgment or saying of the Holy Prophet, and evidence was demanded as to the authenticity of that saying.16 Thus there was a double process at work; not only was the trustworthiness of the particular ḥadīth established beyond all doubt, it also obtained a wide circulation. Thus the multiple needs of a rapidly growing and widely-spreading community, whose necessities had increased tenfold on account of its onward march to civilization, brought into prominence a large number of ḥadīth, knowledge of which had been limited to one or a few only, with the seal of confirmation on their truth, because at that time direct
14 Bukhārī, 3:27.
15 Ibid., 3:37.
16 A Companion, Qabīṣa by name, reports that the grandmother of a deceased person came to Abū Bakr, the first Caliph, and claimed a right in inheritance. The latter said that he could find neither in the Book of God nor in the practice of the Holy Prophet that she was entitled to any share, but that he would make enquiries about it from others. In this enquiry, Mughīra gave evidence that the Holy Prophet gave the grand-mother one-sixth of the property. Abū Bakr asked him to bring another witness in support of it, and Muḥammad ibn Maslama appeared before him corroborating the evidence of Mughīra. Judgment was accordingly given in favour of the grandmother (Tr. 28:9; AD. 18:5). Again, Fātimah, the Holy Prophet’s daughter, claimed that she was entitled to an inheritance from her father. As against this, Abū Bakr cited a saying of the Holy Prophet: “We prophets do not leave an inheritance; whatever we leave is a charity.” The truth of this ḥadīth was not questioned by any one, and Fāṭimah’s claim was rejected (Bu. 85:2). Such incidents happened daily and became the occasion of establishing or otherwise the truth of many sayings of the Holy Prophet.