The Life & Character of the Seal of Prophets (sa) - Volume I — Page 27
I - Early Sources of Sīrat & Islāmic History 27 It is evident from these examples that the custom of writing the Aḥādīth of the Holy Prophet sa had commenced in the time of the companions and some of the companions of the Holy Prophet sa practically adhered to this system. Indeed, as generations passed, the custom of preserving the Aḥādīth of the Holy Prophet sa by writing became an increasingly common practice. As mentioned previously, it is not possible to mention examples from latter generations in this brief note. Nonetheless, at this point, merely to express the breadth of the method by which narrations were written in latter generations, a single example will suffice. Yaḥyā bin Mu‘īn is a renowned narrator of the past from whom many venerable Muḥaddithīn such as Imām Bukhārī ra , Imām Muslim ra , Abū Dāwūd As-Sajistānī ra and many others, have taken narrations. It is narrated that he possessed 600,000 Aḥādīth preserved in writing and he would relate these narrations from his written collection. Therefore, it is recorded in Wafiyyātul-A‘ayān: ِ سُئِل َ یَحْیی ٰ كَم ْ كَتَبْت َ مِن َ الْحَدِیْث ِ فَقَال َ كَتَبْت ُ بِیَدِی ْ ھٰذِہ ٖ سِت َّ مِائَة ِ اَلْف ٍ حَدِیْث It was inquired of Yaḥyā bin Mu‘īn of the number of Aḥādīth he possessed in written form. He answered that, “I have written 600,000 Aḥādīth by my own hand” 1 One should bear in mind that Yaḥyā bin Mu‘īn was not of the Jāmi‘īn- e-Ḥadīth 2 who left behind a collection of Aḥādīth like Imām Bukhārī ra or Imām Muslim ra. Instead his writing of Aḥādīth was in the capacity of a narrator alone. One can assume the same with regards to other narrators of Ḥadīth as well. Therefore, there is no doubt that in the time of the companions of the Holy Prophet sa , Aḥādīth and narrations began to find their way into written composition. The breadth of this system expanded to the extent that the existing collections of Aḥādīth comprise a significant portion of such Aḥādīth as were related not only verbally but also through writing until they reached the Jāmi‘īn-e-Ḥadīth. Our intent is not to imply that a majority of the 1 Wafiyyātul-A‘ayān, By Abū ‘Abbās Aḥmad bin Muḥammad bin Ibrāhīm Al-Ma‘rūf ibni Khalkān, Volume 5, p. 114, under “Abū Zakariyyā Yaḥyā bin Mu‘īn”, Dārul-Kutubil-‘Ilmiyyah, Beirut, Lebanon, First Edition (1998) 2 The Collectors of Ḥadīth (Publishers)