also made a distinction between ḥadīth relating to matters of jurisprudence and others, such as those having to do with past history or with prophecies, or with other material which had no bearing on the practical life of man. We are told that they were stricter in matter of jurisprudence than in other ḥadīth. Thus in his Kitāb al-Madkhal Baihaqi says: “When we narrate from the Holy Prophet in what is allowed and what is prohibited, we are strict in the chain of transmission and in the criticism of the narrators, but when we relate reports on the merits of people, and about reward and punishment, we are lax in the line of transmission and over-look the defects of the narrators.” And Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal says: “Ibn Isḥāq is a man from whom such reports may be taken (i.e., those which relate to the life of the Holy Prophet), but when the question is about what is allowed and what is forbidden, we have recourse to a (strong) people like this, and he inserted the fingers of one hand amid those of the other,” conjoining the hands, and thus pointing to the strength of character of the transmitters.

It must, however, be admitted that most of the collectors paid more attention to the investigation of the narrators than to the other critical tests; they were justified in this, for their object was to produce reliable collections and, therefore, their first concern was to see that the ḥadīth could be authentically traced back to the Holy Prophet through a trustworthy chain of narrators. This part of the criticism was more essential, as the longer the chain of narrators, the more difficult would it have been to test their reliability. Other tests could be applied to any ḥadīth at any time, and the lapse of a thousand years could in no way affect the value of these tests, but the passing away of another century would have rendered the task of the examination of the chain of narrators so difficult as to be for all practical purposes impossible. Hence the collectors rightly focussed their attention on this test. Nor did the work of collecting the Ḥadīth close the door to further criticism. The collectors contented themselves with producing collections reliable in the main, leaving the rest of the work of criticism to future generations. They never claimed infallibility for their works; even Bukhārī did not do that. They exercised their judgments to the best of their ability, but they never claimed, nor does any Muslim claim on their behalf, infallibility