Hadith Collecting and Recording

This entry is for my future reference. Before understand this entry, first, we need to know what is hadith and what is the main structure in a hadith.

Hadith and Its Structure

Hadith (pl. ahadith; lit. "narrative") are oral traditions relating to the words and deeds of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. Hadith collections are regarded as important tools for determining the Sunnah, or Muslim way of life, by all traditional schools of jurisprudence.

(Wikipedia)

One example of hadith is:

Narrated by Umar ibn Al-Khattab, "I heard the Messenger of Allah s.a.w. say: Actions are but by intention and every man shall have but that which he intended. Thus he whose migration was for Allah and His messenger, his migration was for Allah and His messenger, and he whose migration was to achieve some worldly benefit or to take some woman in marriage, his migration was for that for which he migrated."

The red one indicates the narrators, while the blue one indicates the text of the hadith.

Collecting and Recording Hadith
Just like Gospel for the Christians, the Muslims also have their own main books telling the story of our prophet. The only difference is, the Christians have 4 main Gospels (Mark, Luke, John, Matthew), whereas we have six main books of hadith, named Kutub as-Sittah (The Six Books), which consist of:

1. Sahih Al-Bukhari by Imam Al-Bukhari;
2. Sahih Muslim by Imam Muslim;
3. Sunan At-Tirmizi by Imam At-Tirmizi;
4. Sunan Abu Daud by Imam Abu Daud;
5. Sunan An-Nasa'i by Imam An-Nasa'i;
6. Sunan Ibnu Majah by Imam Ibnu Majah.

However, every book was compiled in a number of volumes, makes the price for the books become expensive (even for the translation). And I (as a student who are planning to take hadith courses at the university) need to know hadith well, including the science of hadith.

About the hadith collection, I do not have the authentic hadith books (for example, The Six Books) at my home as my reference. Therefore, I took the iniciative to collect and record the hadith in my own books: At-Targhib wa at-Tarhib and Al-Musnad Lukhman al-Yusufi.

My Ways in Collecting and Recording Hadith
Since hadith is uncountable, so it is very hard to collect all hadith. Please note that.

My reference to find the hadith are these:


I have my own criteria in choosing the hadith from these books to be collected and recorded:

• There must the the original text in Arabic and the translation.
• In a hadith, there must be the second narrators (after Rasulullah s.a.w.), the hadith text, and the last narrators of the hadith.

On the authority of Abu Abdul Rahman Abdullah ibn Umar ibn al-Khattab who said: I heard the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) say: "Islam has been built on five [pillars]: testifying that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is the messenger of Allah, performing the Prayers, paying the Zakat, making the Pilgrimage to the House, and fasting in Ramadan."
Narrated by Al-Bukhari and Muslim

• If the status of a hadith are known (authentic or weak), state its status.

At-Targhib wa at-Tarhib (The Recommended and the Intimidation)

In this book, 20 hadith which are chosen as students' analysis are recorded in this book. suitable to the title, every hadith are explained in the form of short notes for my use.

This book will be used for kuliah hadith next year. So, if you want to the result of composing this book, you are welcomed to the lecture at a surau in St. Joseph Secondary School, every Saturday morning. I will announce the starting date, insya-Allah.

Al-Musnad Lukhman al-Yusufi
This is not a copy of Al-Musnad Imam Ahmad bin Hanbal. This is my own version of musnad.

In a musnad, the hadith are arranged according to the name of the second narrator, either according to the alphabet or the Sahabats' rank.

For my own musnad, I planned to arrange the hadith according to the name alphabetically.