Islamic Tradition
As opposed to the evidence available on the development of the Qur'an,
there are almost no sources describing the evolution of traditions after
Muhammad's death.^1
It appears that Qur'anic insufficiencies led Muslims to be^2 gin collecting and
classifying an enormous amount of hadith. Although there intially appears
to have been a great interest in the traditional battle accounts of early
Islam, the need for certain doctrinal hadith gradually made^3 itself felt.
Perhaps one of the earliest developments of Islamic doctrine in the hadith
can be traced with respect to the "shahada," (or short creed) in which a
Muslim bears witness to the uniqueness of Allah and the divine messenger-
ship of Muhammad. Archaeologically, Muhammad's name has not been
found in any datable religious or official formulations much earlier than
690 AD, and the verb for bearing witness only seems to appear i^4 n
archaeological finds from the period of the `Abbasids. Ne^5 vertheless, one
would expect that a Monotheistic creed was used by Muslims at first, such
as those which can be found in the Qur'an (e.g. sura 112) or implied in
hadith. Muhammad's name was certainly added to such formula^6 tions later,
since it does not appear in any of the Qur'anic "creeds," but rather, in some
canonical traditions.^7
The doctrine of the famous "five pillars" of Islam, as well a^8 s the institution
of the five daily prayers, are also enjoined in traditions,^9 but not in the
Qur'an.
Technically, each Islamic tradition is supposed to be accompanied by the
names of its transmitters, an "isnad," back to an original source. Although it
appears that the first few generations of Islamic scholars did not usually
keep "isnads," their usage became very important when the co^10 llections of
canonical traditions were being compiled. Thus, a great number of isnads
were no doubt tampered with or invented altogether, and the standard
Islamic practice of basing the reliability of a tradition simply on the
"soundness" of its "isnad" has often caused difficulties.^11