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Muḥammad or his intimate companions. These Traditions, at first handed down only by word of mouth, were embodied in authoritative compilations during the third century of the Muhammadan era, and in all matters of dogma, religious observance, law and the practices of the devout life they were regarded as authorities second only to the Qurʾān itself. Indeed reverence for the Traditions reached such a point that their prescriptions were placed on a level with the sacred text of the Qurʾān, and so early as the end of the first century of the Muhammadan era it had been laid down that in arriving at a decision in regard to the meaning of the Qurʾān, the finding of the Traditions was decisive, and that it was not the Qurʾān which sat in judgement on the Traditions. Thus it is impossible to appreciate the place which the Traditions occupy in Muslim thought unless due recognition is given to the unassailable authority which is assigned to them.

The word 'tradition' is a somewhat unsatisfactory translation for the Arabic 'Ḥadīth', as technically employed to mean a record of the actions and sayings of the Prophet, for in the Christian system of theology a tradition does not generally carry the same weight as a text from the revealed Word of God, and Christian tradition has not received verbal embodiment in the same rigid form as in Muhammadan literature;* for in Muslim theology a Ḥadīth is believed in many cases to represent the actual words of God, even