ISNAD

(from Arabic sanad, support), in Islam, a list of authorities who have transmitted a report (hadith) of a statement, action, or approbation of Muhammad, one of his Companions (Sahabah), or of a later authority (tabi'); its reliability determines the validity of a hadith. The isnad precedes the actual text (matn) and takes the form, It has been related to me by A on the authority of B on the authority of C on the authority of D (usually a Companion of the Prophet) that Muhammad said. . . . During Muhammad's lifetime and after his death, hadiths were usually quoted by his Companions and contemporaries and were not prefaced by isnads; only after a generation or two (c. AD 700) did the isnad appear to enhance the weight of its text. In the 2nd century Ah (after AD 720), when the example of the Prophet as embodied in hadithrather than local custom as developed in Muslim communitieswas established as the norm (sunnah) for an Islamic way of life, a wholesale creation of hadiths, all substantiated by elaborate isnads, resulted. Since hadiths were the basis of virtually all Islamic scholarship, especially Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir) and legal theory (fiqh), Muslim scholars had to determine scientifically which of them were authentic. This was done by a careful scrutiny of the isnads, rating each hadith according to the completeness of its chain of transmitters and the reliability and orthodoxy of its authorities (see 'ilm al-hadith). Early compilations of the most reliable hadiths (known as musnads) were even arranged by isnad; that is, classified according to the Companion of Muhammad to whom they were attributed. Most notable of these was the Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855), incorporating about 29,000 traditions. Musnads proved difficult to use efficiently, however, and later compilations, known as musannaf, grouped hadiths according to subject matter.