traditions of transmission of hadith in a comparativeanalysis of orientalists’ views

the issue of transmission of hadith, in western views, is an influential factor concerning the historical reliability of hadith. many western scholars dealing with muslim tradition assumed that in the main the hadith had been transmitted orally and consequently through the oral transmission process, it has been distorted and changed. the reason for this idea is the existence of some prophetic hadith about prohibition of writing down the hadith which had been accepted by some companions. these scholars claimed that hadith hasn't been written before the third islamic century. against, muslim scholars by collecting many evidence and documents prove that muslims, in spite of some opposition, used to write down hadith very early and continuously. on the other hand, harald motzki by the use of recent improvement methodology in hadith study shows that during the first two centuries of islam, hadith transmitted by combined manner of written and oral transmission. he said some instances of hadith literature in the first century of islam are observable in some islamic centers.