The History of Hadith:
People, Books, and Scholarly Milieus from the First Generations to Contemporary
Research
The History of Hadith traces how transmitted reports, books, and scholarly milieus developed
from the earliest Muslim generations to contemporary research. Written for Swedishspeaking
university students, it consistently distinguishes a report’s early attribution from its
documented transmission, surviving manuscript witnesses, printed editions, and the digital
texts encountered by modern readers. Fourteen chapters build the narrative around concrete
source-based cases. The Ṣaḥīfa attributed to Hammām and the transmission of al-Muwaṭṭaʾ
show how early works can be studied through later witnesses and student recensions.
ʿĀʾisha’s home, Ibn Masʿūd’s teaching, and journeys to Damascus and Mecca reveal the
people and cities behind the literature. Maʿmar’s teaching, Ibn Abī Ḥātim’s critical material,
and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal’s al-Musnad illuminate the movement from lessons, memory, and
notes to organized books. Later chapters examine the selections of al-Bukhārī and Muslim,
the canonization of book groups, manuscript reading notes, and limited comparisons with
Imami, Zaydi, and Ibadi traditions. Regional teaching, endowments, printing, new
educational institutions, and modern historical methods carry the story into today’s digital
collections. Primary and classical sources form the foundation of the account, while modern
scholarship is used for defined questions of dating and interpretation. Each chapter states
what a source can establish and where its evidentiary reach ends. The book is a self-contained
Swedish-language study that can be used independently of any companion volume. A
consistent feature is that each chapter names the source material carrying its argument,
whether a colophon, a reading note, a title page, or a modern study. The reader therefore sees
not only what scholarship has concluded, but also the evidence on which the conclusion rests
and which questions remain open.
Keywords: history of hadith; hadith literature; scholarly milieus; oral and written
transmission; manuscripts; book history; Islamic intellectual history; source criticism;
modern hadith research