‘The Controversy Over Kitaba 3
‘The conclusion is generally drawn thatthe sayings of the Prophet which
discourage the writing of hadith, being fewer and weaker than those which
encourage it, must have been based either on the generally unfavourable
public opinion prevailing in Arabia at the beginning of his career عد‎ prophet,
fr on fears that written hadith might become confused withthe text of the
Qur'an, about the purity of which he was so scrupulous. But a soon as he
discemed that these hazards were at an end, he permitted the writen
recording of hadith. The date of one hadith inthe Sahil of Bukhari, which
to Abi Shah permission to write down one of his discourses, is dated
the year of the Conquest of Mecca, a fact which would favour the view that
the hadiths which allow the writing of postdate those which indicate
prohibition. The fact ofthe dictation of certain laws inthe later years ofthe
Prophet's lfe also lends support to this theory. Similarly, the of
‘Umar the collection of hadiths shows thatthe prohibition was not
in force during that time. Its reported, that “Umar intended to collect
and itis extremely unlikely that he would have considered the
‘matter seriously for an entire month as he did, had he been aware of any
Prophetic teaching to forbid the writing down of hadith material, particu-
larly since all the Companions appear ro have advised him in favour of sucha
collection; while he explained his final decision against doing so in terms of
his fear of the neglect of the Que'in rather than any alleged Prophetic
prohibition known to hit.
‘Western scholars 00, have held that were written down during
‘the Goldziher, for instance, writes that:
and that reluctance to preserve it
in written form was merely the esut of later considerations
‘Many-a. Companion of che Prophet is likely ro have carted his
him and used dispense and
his circle, The contents of these were called
those who disseminated these texts named in succes-
sion their immediate authorities, and thus the isndd came into