The Preservation of Hadith by Ibrahim Madani

Anas also wrote down his collection of ahadith. Sa‘id ibn Hilal says in the Mustadrak of Hakim:

When we asked a lot of questions, Anas pulled out a big bag, opened it and would say, “These are the ahadith that I have heard from the Blessed Prophet (PBUH). I wrote them down and have already shown them to the Blessed Prophet (PBUH).”37

The summary of this introduction is that Allah (SWTH) created certain tools, like the photographic memories of the Arabs, to help preserve the ahadith. He then gave this knowledge a practical shape through the lives of the Sahaba to protect it from becoming another philosophy. This preservation came by way of the principle of practice. Then He produced the scholars and their students, who dedicated their lives to documenting these aúódõth. Then a time came when hundreds of scholars compiled all of the ahadith and put them in book form. We will discuss this last stage in the later sections of this book.