At a glance
- Era
- The Prophetic Era · The Early Abbasid Caliphate · Abbasid Fragmentation
- Region
- Arabia
- Review
- Draft Completeness 1/5 · Help complete it
Walk this pathway
8steps · 35min · student · newcomer
What is a hadith?
Transmitted word, deed, approval and description of the Prophet: the second source after the Qur'an.
The chain
'So-and-so told us from so-and-so': how a report travels from his lips into the books.
The Six Books
Bukhari, Muslim, Abu Dawud, Tirmidhi, Nasa'i and Ibn Majah: the third-century compilations that became the community's reference.
Before the six: Muwatta and the musnads
In Medina Malik compiles the Muwatta half a century before the Sahihs.
The methodology
How the muhaddithun tell sound from weak: the states of chain, text and narrator.
Hadith methodology (mustalah al-hadith) · Sacred hadith (hadith qudsi)
Sira: the hadith's context
The sira preserves the events in which the reports were spoken, and the reports preserve the sira.
The Prophetic sira · The Prophet's Life: From the Elephant to the Passing
Shama'il: his portrait
His form and character as eyewitnesses conveyed them: the Shama'il book in Tirmidhi's Jami'.
Voices from the Sahih
Selected texts from Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim as transmitted: on the Ansar's standing, the days of the campaigns, the hours of the Prophet's death, the Jibril hadith on Islam, iman and ihsan, the description of the Farewell Pilgrimage, and the Thaqalayn injunction.
Bukhari 3803 — The Throne shook at Sa'd ibn Mu'adh's death · Bukhari 4330 — The Ansar are the inner garment, the people the outer · Bukhari 4662 — Time has come full circle · Bukhari 4418 — Ka'b ibn Malik's account of staying behind at Tabuk · Bukhari 4451 — His last words: with the highest Companion · Bukhari 716 — Tell Abu Bakr to lead the prayer · Muslim 8 — The Jibril hadith: Islam, iman, ihsan · Muslim 1218 — Jabir's description of the Prophet's hajj · Muslim 2408 — The Thaqalayn report at Ghadir Khumm
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Do first:: Islam in Thirty Minutes
Overview
A path through the documented reports of the Prophet: it gathers hadiths from Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim in successive rooms, from the revelation to the departure, with their narrators and chains. 1
Impact
The first display in the museum built entirely on passage records gathered from the texts of the collections. The visitor follows it as a primary source reading. 1
Sources
- Wikidata
- Sahih al-Bukhari
- Sahih Muslim
- Jami' al-Tirmidhi
- Muwatta of Imam Malik
Cite this page
islam.museum contributors. “The Prophetic Hadith: From Hearing to the Collections”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/exhibits/path-hadith/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-17.