The science of hadith is a noble one, and generations of scholars far, far more capable and devoted than I have dedicated their lives to transmitting, analyzing, and sorting through the legacy attributed to Muhammad. One could spend a lifetime reading the works of scholars like al-Bukhari, al-Dhahabi, and Ibn Hajar, and two lifetimes trying to keep up with them. Matching their accomplishments is inconceivable to me. I can only hope that this book provides an adequate introduction to their work and the influence it has had on Islamic civilization.
Students and colleagues always ask me whether the Sunni hadith tradition provides an accurate representation of Muhammad’s teachings. In truth, I can only say that projects such as this book are part of my search for the answer to that question. As the Chinese art collector Lu Shih-hua (d. 1779 CE) once wrote, such matters ‘came to us from the ancients. The ancients are gone, and we cannot raise them from the Nether World to question them. So how can we arrive at the truth without being vain and false in our wrangling noisily about it?’1
Jonathan A. C. Brown
Khadim al-hadith al-sharif
Sana, Yemen, 2007
1 Wen Fong, ‘The Problem of Forgery in Chinese Painting: Part One,’ p. 99.