Generations of the Sufis (Al-Tabaqat al-sufiyya),
al-Sulami (d. 1091) links the sayings of prominent
mystics to the hadith of Muhammad.
Muslim scholars recognized very early on,
certainly by the middle of the eighth century, that
some of the hadith had been forged or transmit-
ted carelessly. Hadith transmitters and collectors
even attacked each other for doing so. Moreover,
because so much of law and doctrine was founded
on hadith, they needed to be assessed according to
their degree of authenticity or lack thereof. Such
concerns led to the development of a science of
hadith criticism (ilm al-hadith). The focus of this
science was on the names of transmitters listed in
the isnad. Hadiths were basically judged accord-
ing to how continuous the line of transmitters
was. Hadith with the most continuous lines were
called sahih (correct, sound), as long as the con-
tent did not contradict the Quran. If an isnad was
discontinuous or had unreliable transmitters, then
the hadith was called hasan (good). If a hadith
had transmitters known to be unreliable or if the
content was not in conformity with the Quran
and had unacceptable content, then it was called
daif (weak). The need to know who the transmit-
ters were, where they lived, when they converted
to Islam, and so forth helped spark the writing
of biographical encyclopedias, which became a
major genre of Islamic and Arabic literature.
Since the late 19th century, Western scholars
of Islamic studies, especially those known as Ori-
entalists, have treated the hadith with even more
skepticism than medieval Muslim scholars. They
have argued that the hadith were either verbal-
ized survivals of pre-Islamic custom, legitimated
during the Islamic period by attributing them to
Muhammad and his companions, or they were
fabricated a century or more after Muhammad’s
death to legitimate practices and beliefs that
emerged after the seventh century. Scholarly con-
sensus in recent decades has moved closer to the
position accepted by most Muslims—that many, if
not most, of the hadith are authentic, but they still
demand critical assessment. Beyond the question
of authenticity, however, the most critical ques-
tion facing Muslims today is whether and how
the hadith can still inform Muslim life in the age
of globalization and profound social and cultural
change.
See also akhbari school; aUthority; biogra-
phy; fiqh; orientalism; sharia.Further reading: Hadith translations: Husayn al-
Baghawi, expanded by Wali al-Din al-Khatib al-Tribizi,
Mishkat al-Masabih (The Niche for Lamps). Translated
by James Robson, 4 vols. (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad
Ashraf, 1964–1966); Muslim ibn al-Hajjaj, Sahih Mus-
lim: Being Sayings and Doings of the Prophet Muhammad
as Narrated by His Companions and Compiled under the
Title al-Jami al-Sahih by Imam Muslim. Translated by
Abdul Hamid Siddiqi (Lahore: Sh. Muhammad Ashraf,
1971–1973); John Alden Williams, The Word of Islam
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994), 36–65.
Secondary works: Frederick Mathewson Denny, An
Introduction to Islam (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pear-
son/Prentice Hall, 2006); William A. Graham, Divine
Word and Prophetic Word in Early Islam (The Hague and
Paris: Mouton, 1977); Etan Kohlberg, “Shii Hadith.” In
The Cambridge History of Arabic Literature. Vol. I, Arabic
Literature to the End of the Umayyad Period, edited by A.
F. L. Beeston et al., 299–307 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983); Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi,
Hadith Literature: Its Origin, Development and Special
Features (Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 1993).Hagar (Arabic: Hajar) biblical maidservant
of Abraham and mother of his son Ishmael, whom
Muslims include in the ancestry of the Arab peoples
and the prophet Muhammad
Islamic understandings of Hagar are based on
two stories found in the book of Genesis, the
first book of the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament.
According to the first of these stories, Hagar was
the Egyptian servant girl whom Sarah, the wife
of abraham, gave to her husband to bear his
child because she herself was barren. After Hagar
became pregnant, Sarah exiled her to the desert,K 280 Hagar