Abstract
One of the works that constituted a turning point in the history of hadith method is the Mukaddimah of Ibn al-Salāh (d. 643/1245). Compared to the fravious works, Muqaddimah varies from others with the features such as abandoning attribution (isnād), value information as only source person or work, even being cited many times without any sources. These features have provided great convenience in terms of easily processing, interpreting, synthesizing and gaining new forms of information. Although information transfer without attribution has started before Ibn al-Salah, this issue settled in the field with him, and relatively more intensity was given to the analysis and synthesis of information.
Comments by the author are rarely encountered in al-Muhaddith al-fāsil, one of the works before the Muqaddimah. In addition, as a natural consequence of the purpose of writing, most of the methodological issues, such as 53 basic hadith methodological issues existing in Muqaddimah, were not included in this work, and it is concentrated on the content aiming to defend hadithists. As for Hākim's (d. 405/1014) Ma'rifah, this work differs from al-Muhaddith al-fāsil in that it covers most of the methodological issues, albeit at a basic level, comments by writer is relatively prevail, and as it is briefly desidned, methodological issues are not included at all, as well. In these two works, information has been transferred with attribution, except for a few. Ibn al-Salāh, who used attribution in only ten places, tried to include all methodological issues and problems in his work, since he wrote his work with the aim of solving these methodological problems. While Ibn al-Salah took a little advantage of al-Muhaddith al-fāsil, he benefited from Ma‘rifah relatively more.
Another work that can be accepted as a milestone of the history of hadith metodology is Ibn Hajar’s (d. 852/1449) Nuzhah. Nuzhah has been completely copyrighted with the original sentences of its author and there is not any direct information transfer in the work. Although Nuhbah, which is the original of Nuzhah, is mostly considered as one of the summary of Mukaddimah, there are studies that argue that this work is an independent work. The fact that most of the terms and definitions of Ibn Hajar were preferred in the post-Nuzhah period, the studies on Nuhbah and Nuzhah held a great deal and the relatively decrease in the studies on the Muqaddimah show that the Mukaddimah left its central position to Nuhbah and Nuzhah. In Tedrīb, another work examined in the article, the emphasis on Ibn Hajar’s views, along with names such as Irâkî and Bulkînî, confirms this idea.