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hadd See crime and punishment.

hadith (Arabic: speech, report, narrative)

A hadith is a short report, story, or tradition about

what mUhammad (d. 632), the historical founder

of the Islamic religion, said or did and about what

he did not say or do. The word hadith is also used

with reference to the body of such reports, known

as the hadith. There were literally thousands of

hadith circulating in the Muslim community in

oral and written form in Islam’s first century. These

were eventually collected into books during the

ninth and 10th centuries. These reports are part of

a very large corpus of such accounts that govern

Islamic law, religious practice, belief, and everyday

life. Most Muslims believe that the hadith should

complement the qUran. As such, it embodies one

kind of revealed truth that defines the sUnna, or

the authentic code of action approved by Muham-

mad as the foremost prophet of Islam. Throughout

Islamic history, each of the major Islamic tradi-

tions—sUnnism, shiism, and sUFism—has looked to

the hadith for guidance and inspiration.

In its classic form, a hadith is composed of two

parts, a chain of transmitters (the isnad) and the

main text (matn) of the report. A hadith from the

chapter on beverages in the collection of Muslim

ibn al-Hajjaj states:

Abd Allah ibn Muadh al-Anbari told us that

he was told by Shuba on the authority of

Abu Ishaq on the authority of al-Bara who

said that Abu Bakr the Truthful said, “When

we went from Mecca to Medina with the

Prophet, we passed by a shepherd. God’s

Messenger had become thirsty, so I milked

[an animal] and brought some milk to him.

He drank it until his thirst was quenched.”

The list of transmitters here goes back in time

from Muslims in the ninth century to Muham-

mad in the seventh century. abU bakr, a close

companion of Muhammad and the first caliph (r.

632–634), was the witness. The sunna, or reli-

gious norm, is contained in the main text, which

upholds the permissibility of drinking milk fresh

from an animal, no doubt a widespread practice

in Arabia at the time. Hadith can also express

prohibitions. In the same chapter on beverages,

Muslim includes a hadith transmitted by aisha,

Muhammad’s wife, which prohibits intoxicating

drinks. According to this hadith, Muhammad

said, “Every beverage that intoxicates is forbidden

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