Abstract
There are many verses and hadīths that emphasize the virtue of knowledge and encourage lear-ning. Muslim scholars, especially hadīth scholars, have worked according to these divine inducements in the historical process, and had endured many arduous journeys for the sake of knowledge. Among the prevalent narratives widely spread in the context of incentive motives is the hadīth of "seek knowledge even if you have to go as far as China, for seeking knowledge is a duty on every Muslim." In this context, emphasis will be placed first on evaluating the authenticity of the hadīth that was transmitted by many Companions in hadīth the sources, and which was famous for the phrase "seeking knowledge is an obligation on every Muslim." The origin of the narration that will be covered in the research is considered to be this hadīth. Thus, the research indicates that one of the Companions who narrated this hadīth is Anas ibn Mālik, and the hadīth narrated from him both included the phrase of "seek knowledge even in China" in some of its narrations, and in others it was narrated without that phrase. In this respect, the focus will be on how, through which narrators, and for what purpose this phrase is added in the text. The narration is also will be analyzed in chain and text by identifying points of contact between the variants related to the narration.
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