sezgin’s theory about the sources of the compilatory works and the reconstruction of lost sources: a critical survey

sezgin argued that written documents were used from early on and although collectors transmitted their works orally but extracted hadiths from written sources. according to him the isnads contain the name of authors and the authoritative transmitters of the books. also he proposed a method based on isnad analysis to single out the sources of a collector and to reconstruct the early lost works. scholars using his method directed some criticisms at it such as: writing hadith did not guarantee the authenticity, he rarely differentiated between lecture notes and actual books, he did not consider that original texts were gone through some changes in lecture courses and that medieval islamic scholars rated exclusively written transmission as dubious. in addition his method has some shortcoming in distinction between collectors and transmitters. at last it is more applicable for tracing the sources of a given extant work than reconstracting the original of a lost work.